The Power of the Cloud — Where to start from
Cloud everywhere. We nowadays have cloud services popping out from scratch and big providers enriching their offering with amazing possibilities. But then what? What’s the real value behind that cloud rush?
Well, soon or later, we’ll have to deal with that. Insurance companies have already started their investigations, proofs and plans for a successful migration to the sky. Cloud not only matters when it comes to cost savings and DevOps or infrastructure optimization but also, and especially, when a company wants to move to a more digital approach. The ease of provisioning, together with countless service options and providers, opens the doors of new a product concept.
We can now use digital blocks to create an offering and focus more on the business value, rather than IT efforts and costs.
Think about a brand new Insurer, with a good idea but no clue what technology use. Our role is simple as that: go design a solution, put blocks together and Bob’s your uncle. That’s why a deep knowlege of cloud providers and offerings is crucial and strategic, from now on.
What’s the deal? — The four ‘R’s
Amazon and Google are the biggest vendors, together with Microsoft, even though all minor businesses offer cloud solutions for their customers. But be aware of that: most of the time, a cloud solution is a mere shift and lift to a remote Data Center, with a relatively straight forward cost reduction. A Data Center owned by a technology partner that, in turn, relies on Amazon or Google, forcing the Insurer to pay more, compared to same solution driven by the Insurer itself.
function migrate( myData ){
var techPartner = '$$$';
var consultant = '$$';
var complexity = myData.length * '$'; return techPartner + consultant + complexity;
}
Cloud migrations is not that simple. Or, at least, it has not to be. Rethink, rehost, replatform, repurchase. All of this concepts are critical and make the difference between a default consultancy and a brilliant one. Any examples? Of course.
Rethink the claim management. What can be improved and what can be adapted to emerging technologies and standards. Then start with a rehosting approach, using cloud services, and move logic and processes on remote servers with an immediate costs saving and delivery optimization.
Later, start a replatform analysis, leveraging on all additional services provided by Amazon, Google or Microsoft (insights dashboard, big data analysis, artificial intelligence, ready to be used on Insurer’s remote machines, one click away). Remove unuseful systems, concentrate business processes and values on a new dimension: pay as you use, pay as you plug services in.
function smartMigration( myData ){
var techConsultant = '$$$';
var complexity = (myData * '$') / CLOUD_FACTOR; return techConsultant + complexity;
}
Repurchase licenses and software agreements based on what you expect to use, and not on a flat fee. Put blockchain, IoT and chatbots all together into play, let these petabytes of data flow into the cloud (where the storage cost is much lower) and sit next to CFO and CTO dicussing about what new product to launch and not about which costs to pay.
Strenghten and sharpen cloud skills. Change the rules and propose new visions instead of new products. Be brave and experiment.
Where do we start from?
Luckly, all three providers have a free tier newcomers (meaning that if you already have an account, you are not eligible for it). There we go:
The enrollment procedure is more or less the same: provide registration data and we get free usage and quotas. All subscriptions come with many tutorials to get started and are plenty of add-on services ready to use and included in a free plan. Some examples:
Amazon
- 🔌Amazon KMS (Key Management Service)
- 🔌Amazon Lex (AI with Alexa)
- 🔌Google Vision API (Image recognition)
- 🔌Google NLP (Natural language processing)
Azure
- 🔌Azure IoT Hub (Collect and manage IoT data)
- 🔌Azure AI Platform (Artificial intelligence)
If we take a look at all of these offerings we may get lost in a number of options and services, or ask ourselves How shoud we use those? How hard is their configuration?
Every provider has its own configuration and this requires a small effort in terms of knowledge acquisition. But that’s the purpose of this publication and we will focus a bit on how to master the technology, then we will dive into how to identify and combine right services for what businesses.
Stay Tuned
In next articles we will go through platforms and services to discover cutting-edge products and applications, with an eagle eye on innovation and future drivers.
