Enterprises are struggling to digitally transform, migrate to cloud, and build unified data structures, which represents an opportunity for channel partners explains Vlad Postelnicu from Software AG.
Legacy applications are a big burden on the IT framework of any organisation with its huge operational costs. Most organisations currently will have a legacy system of some kind. Software AG anticipates that it will take around 15-20years for legacy systems to wean out completely.
Therefore, proactively, as a company, before diving into a project with any organisation, vendors aim to streamline operations and technical capabilities to meet evolved business requirements through a phased migration of legacy system to the cloud. This is facilitated by a partner ecosystem through different approaches based on customer’s preferences as below.
Typically an existing application is picked up and deployed as-is to infrastructure-as-a-service, or IaaS in the cloud. There are multiple advantages with this approach – with massive time advantages to move to the cloud and the software will no longer run on a computer in a datacentre that would otherwise need to operate, maintain, backup and upgrade. This as-is, on-premises architecture, however, is not flexible under load nor will it have a built-in high availability.
The second path is where a customer chooses to adopt the capabilities provided by a software-as-a-service, or SaaS application. Good examples of this are Salesforce, ServiceNow or Marketo. With a move of a particular business function to a SaaS application, one can switch off or decommission an old application on-premises. The advantages here are that the applications are cloud native, with clear pricing and no operational efforts by the customer.
The third path is where a customer chooses to build brand new cloud-native applications using all the powerful capabilities provided by a platform-as-a-service, PaaS such as the AWS stack or Azure stack. This may allow to wind down obsolete on-premises applications. A key advantage of this approach is the faster time to market, which makes it very suitable for systems of innovation.
Also, by building applications from scratch, customers can leverage the best the cloud providers offer, example databases as a service and easy access to huge storages that can be used as data lakes for analytics.
Siloed enterprises
Siloes are a heavy burden on enterprise systems. Vendors understand how enterprises work across the globe and removing departmental silos is presently their main motto to help customers. Vendors have invested in their partner ecosystem in recent years in developing skillsets towards executional excellence not only in using a suite of solutions, but also in architectural and consultant point of view so that partners can guide customers in making right architectural and technical decisions to eliminate departmental siloes.
Therefore, vendors are equipped not only as a technology implementor but also as a consultant through their partner ecosystem throughout the customer journey.
With a quick view at any organisation, the primary area is to understand business requirements to streamline operations and technical capabilities required for such capabilities. The partner ecosystem supports vendor customers to understand their business processes, identify dependencies, find bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement while it also provides insights into a company’s operational stage.
These insights enable entities to optimise and stimulate systems and processes in sync with business strategy and objectives. This means a deep analysis and an understanding of the technology landscape is imperative to execute this transformation.
This involves channel partners to be working closely with CIM, CIOs, enterprise architects, head of transformation, within the organisation to assess the current state of systems and capabilities, the business and market needs, maximise investments already made for effective new technology decision-making to facilitate and drive successful transformation.
Post the analysis, optimising those processes and defining how future operations will develop are determined, reaching a joint vendor-partner partnership with customers enabling them to own skills and themes where they are able to execute a transformation independently, post the implementation and project completion.
Software AG’s channel partner ecosystem focuses on integration across hybrid environments rather than in silos to create new sophisticated architectures via its strong foundation in app integration and automation through webMethods, data integration with Streamsets, and device integration through Cumulocity to address business and transformation challenges.
In fact, Software AG is also setting up a partner academy for all registered partners that are part of the Software AG Middle East and Turkey ecosystem for ongoing training programs that will be conducted online through the year. Software AG certifications are a market differentiator and tangible proof of commitment to excellence. They are a solution for gaining in-depth knowledge of Software AG solutions provided as our partners deliver excellence for in-demand solutions and services.