If we look at the pace of technology the next series of generational changes are likely to be extremely impressive allowing for greater productivity and automation between corporates, individuals, gadgets (Internet of Things – IOT) and even government agencies allowing ERP systems to work for you rather than vice versa as never before and allowing you to change the current and anecdotal 80% of time on process and 20% on management.
Where we are at the moment, for sure, is in the midst of constant change. Our daily use of cloud services are increasing rapidly at both home and at work, as is our awareness of potential security loop-holes. There is a constant fear that weaknesses known to a few are constantly being exploited by them for financial gain.
This constant threat of a security breach is driving corporates to understand and prioritize their own data within the ERP system into different “security category types” with different handling being mandated depending on data type and sensitivity. Financial stakes are high, as can be seen through the emergence of new forms of corporate breach insurance and corporates are always assessing how to balance this risk with the demands of business reality.
There are now some deep changes in technology that are also allowing for evolutions in cloud process flow options that give corporate end-users greater flexibility in choosing how and where data will be stored and computed during any specific process. Cloud Bursts are an example of this evolution and go one step beyond the commonly known Cloud, On Premise and Hybrid deployments and allow, within a specific process, for a business to define where that process will be run. This allows machines for processing and storage on premise to be right sized for the cost of processing power required meaning that lower deployment costs can be achieved for the business.
Processes can automatically call public clouds like Azure, Amazon, or Aliyun ( Alibaba) to invoke any required additional computing resource power for extra speed. As no data is stored on the cloud, and as data is encrypted, before and post process, corporates achieve an optimum balance of cost, security and processing ability. Additionally by having this control at a process level means that corporates can change as required with minimal process disruption to fine tune their operations and to visualize underlying trends.
Also worth noting is that latest compression technologies combined with 64 bit software written to leverage today’s cores and threads is allowing ERP vendors to further develop systems that are optimized for management accounting. “Like processes” can be achieved through this optimization with fewer steps meaning less coding errors, faster execution and freeing up compute resources to provide additional services like continual monitoring for complex event processing (CEP) and business simulations. This combined with cloud bursts provides further secure cost effective solutions for corporates or for new FinTech companies to further leverage more secure technologies.