Prolifics and IBM data science experts discuss getting your tech environment ready for modern data science projects and the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Our team covers key re-platforming considerations, diverse talent and diverse tools, and how to get started with Watson Studio Premium for IBM Cloud Pak for Data.
Out-of-the-box thinking – it’s thinking in a new, imaginative and innovative way that delivers creative solutions with quality results. During IBM’s Think, the Cube’s Victor Dabrinze interviewed our own Kirsten Craft, Head of Business Development and Marketing here at Prolifics, to learn more about this approach and how it helps Prolifics’ clients gain advantage in their space!
Our client is a large, diverse North American company (DNAC) with operations ranging from construction, equipment and shipbuilding to hydro-energy, forestry and logistics.
About our Client
DNAC had been running Cognos – IBM’s premier business analytics solution – throughout its entire enterprise. It was an integral and ingrained part of its business, generating thousands of analytic reports that kept the huge business on course and running smoothly.
DNAC’s version of Cognos, however, was older. The company was facing support issues and, looking ahead, the current platform was not going to help them with their ongoing analytic requirements. It just wasn’t sufficient enough for the business needs going forward. For DNAC, the decision to upgrade to the newest solution, IBM Cognos Analytics, was an easy one. Cognos Analytics was released as a robust upgrade, with the features, functions and capabilities that DNAC wanted to take advantage of and build on.
Because Cognos was so essential and ran across the entire DNAC footprint, the challenge was finding a technology partner who could manage a complete upgrade at once – not a piecemeal approach, meet DNAC’s timing requirements, and understood and shared the company’s sense of urgency.
Prolifics has worked with DNAC over the years on Cognos planning and analytics pieces, but DNAC had an incumbent company for things like upgrades. However, it became clear to DNAC that the current tech partner would not be able to meet the company’s deadline. DNAC asked us to present our thoughts on an upgrade solution – and the company liked what they heard.
“What they really liked about what we had, which they didn’t see from other organizations, was the whole testing component. Prolifics automated testing is a core expertise of ours that can be an integral part of any project, from its very beginning. So, what impressed them was our capability to expertly upgrade them to the new version and set-up their new environment, combined with the automating testing that everything, like thousands of reports, was working correctly.”
Steve Livingstone is Prolifics’ Regional Sales Director, Canada, and works with DNAC.
Many companies can do Cognos upgrades, while other companies have testing abilities, or the client-company might do their own testing. What DNAC saw was the timing efficiency of both our automated testing and not having to split the project (upgrade and testing) to two organizations.
Prolifics is currently in the process of doing the upgrade. Our expertise in upgrading and our automated testing will have the project done – enterprise wide – in the timing DNAC was looking for. DNAC said it was clear Prolifics would have it all tested, working and operating by their deadline.
Steve Livingstone points out that while this client wanted the entire enterprise upgraded at once, it can be done differently depending on client circumstances. “A company that wants to do it in chunks can still take advantage of our process. There’s no need to do things in small increments because of our ability to actually provide a working production environment in a very expedient time, using our know-how and automation. So, while there should be no risk around in going to the new platform in one enterprise move, it doesn’t really matter. If somebody really likes the Cognos Analytics platform, Prolifics gives you the best opportunity to get there in the most expedient amount of time, with the least amount of risk and the most amount of opportunity for success in production.”
IBM Cognos Analytics is IBM’s premier and robust business analytics solution for sharing actionable insights and augmented intelligence to drive analysis across your organization. IBM Cognos Analytics helps you clean, combine and find new insights from your data. Create striking, dynamic visualizations and share across stakeholders with ease.
At Prolifics, test automation is an integral part of any project, from its very beginning. We’re always developing new testing accelerators and digital products, while applying AI/ML in innovative ways for optimal performance. A test automation strategy will:
Prolifics is a global digital transformation leader with expertise in Data & AI, Integration & Applications, Business Automation, DevXOps, Test Automation, and Cybersecurity across multiple industries. We provide consulting, engineering and managed services for all our practice areas at any point our clients need them. Vision to Value. Faster. It’s not just the Prolifics’ tagline, it’s what drives us. Email solutions@prolifics.com or visit us at prolifics.com.
Statistical Analytics System (SAS) is software used for data analysis. It’s the most widely used data science platform across the globe, so if your organization uses it, you’re in good company. However, SAS is a legacy environment that many organizations find problematic. As with any mature legacy system with tentacles wending their way through an organization’s operating systems, a SAS environment requires a great deal of upkeep — to operate properly, it must be updated and upgraded frequently, which requires purchasing a lot of licenses, and that results in a high cost of ownership.
What executives often don’t realize is that there are not only many cloud platform options, but plenty of migration paths, all of which have their own benefits and levels of cost savings.
Why Do Organizations Migrate to the Cloud?
Most organizations cite seven main reasons behind their choice to migrate to the cloud. Read about those reasons here.
What is PAM?
Prolifics literally wrote the book on migrating from a legacy system to a modern cloud architecture environment. Our experts created a business-sensitive Prolifics Agile Migration (PAM) process manual. This manual provides definition, formality and rigor around the process, and provides a jumping off point to create a unique solution for your organization.
Regardless of the path you choose, however, two things are evident: thorough testing is imperative, and Python must be the programming language used to build the new platform.
Python is an agile, sophisticated and robust open-source programming language widely used for data science, and it is the most downloaded one in the world. Dr. G opines that it is above and beyond SAS in data science, and he believes that any organization considering a move to modern cloud architecture has to make Python part of the equation. “The reality is that Python is eroding legacy scripting languages, like SAS,” he said. “These legacy scripting languages evaporate because they’re islands — they are not a part of an integrated system.”
Because it doesn’t require licenses and allows users to pick and choose only the pieces of code they need, Python offers the flexibility and cost savings that legacy scripting languages can’t.
FUN FACT: Legend says that when Guido van Rossum began to implement Python, he was reading scripts of the 1970s BBC television show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” which served as naming inspiration. Presumably, he thought “Python” was a better name than “Silly Walk.”
Prolifics takes cloud migration, which seems to many organizations an insurmountable task, and breaks it down into a series of simple steps that will help your organization reach its modernization goals.
Connect with us at solutions@prolifics.com.
Michael L. Gonzales, Ph.D., (Dr. G) is Prolifics’ chief data scientist and an active practitioner in the IT space with more than 30 years of industry experience. He specializes in the formulation of business analytics that give competitive advantages to global organizations. Dr. Gonzales is a successful author, industry speaker, published researcher and lifetime Mensa member.
Our client, an international bank hold company (IB) headquartered in Japan, has an extensive global network of finance and business centers. This story focuses on Prolifics’ work with the North American branch of the organization.
About our client, an international bank
Our client’s challenge was one that many companies face. Their middleware, which typically acts like the connective tissue between applications, data and users, was reaching end-of-life. Complicating the issue was that the IB was experiencing this looming concern within the framework of a corporate culture — Ringi — that is not unlike the corporate culture in government organizations or security companies. These organizations often have strict and detailed processes in place that ensure smooth and accurate technology implementation, but these processes can be lengthy and circuitous. The IB required a partner in software architecture who could align with their business culture and support them through the duration of their project.
We entered this project as consultants, helping IB determine the cost of and time to implementation for the middleware software they were considering for purchase. We also helped them ascertain whether their chosen software would meet their needs.
As they drew closer to purchasing the software, Prolifics’ team of experienced software architects and developers began designing the new middleware system to prove that the project could be completed on time and on budget. Based on our guidance, the IB completed the software purchase, and we continued the build, rolling it out in phases.
Throughout the eighteen-month timeline of this project, in adherence to the Ringi process, we oversaw the implementation of new middleware software into IB’s workflow. The IB required us to provide approximately five times the documentation typically required for such an integration so they could have full oversight and ownership of the software and its capability. We were able to fulfill this need while remaining within their project budget.
What is Ringi? The Ringi philosophy is a common approach to business in Japan. It recognizes that managers are not infallible, and seeks consensus from the majority. Lower-level employees will discuss an idea, reach consensus, then present it to their superiors who then go through the same process. The resulting decision is balanced, taking into account the concerns of many people at an organization. But it’s also time-consuming and can sometimes take years.
IB is now running nearly all of their enterprise traffic through the new middleware system that is state-of-the-art and future-ready.
IB was delighted not only with our work, but with our partnership, and they have continued to engage with us as they move their modernization process forward. We’ve helped them identify and execute additional projects, such as digital transformation and cloud implementation, as they work toward becoming a faster and more nimble global entity.
To provide the best opportunity for the IB to reach its modernization goals and global standards, the following technology was emphasized:
As kids (okay, and as adults too), we’d gaze at the shapes of clouds in the sky and talk about what they looked like to us. Today, in a technology context, the shape of your cloud takes on a whole new, and much more important, meaning when you’re talking cloud migration.
Whether you’re leaving your on-prem systems behind, or looking to jump from your current cloud set-up, you need to take a hard look at your prospective new cloud homes. Make sure you compare the qualities and benefits in each cloud provider, so you get the combination that’s right for your business goals – not all clouds are created equal.
Here are seven things to think about when you’re gazing at the tech clouds and contemplating migration:
1) Cost. As compared to on-premise, cloud saves you big money on hardware, maintenance and related infrastructure (like climate-controlled rooms). It also frees up IT staff to do more important work. Yet, among the big cloud service providers, things like optimized computing pricing; per second pricing; and available commitment discounts vary, as do data storage and movement costs. While these charges may seem similar on paper, you could save tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars based on choosing the right cloud platform for how your business runs.
2) Scalability. Clouds are certainly scalable. But make sure you only pay for what you need; and know whether you have to purchase access or pay a scheduled fee to scale up or down.
3) Availability and redundancy. What’s the cloud vendor’s uptime guarantee? A 99.95 percent guarantee still means about ½ a workday down in total over a year. But – do uptime guarantees come with any additional costs associated with redundancy? Does it cost you more to get to 99.99 percent?
4) Security and Access. What’s the provider’s approach to security? Have there been any breaches? What enhanced measures are in place? On the flip side, can you access your data at any place (e.g., remotely), method (e.g., mobile) and time?
5) Compliance. Similar to security, does your provider meet all needed provisions for government regulations, like privacy regulations or PII protections? Especially consider the compliance regulations or certifications most important to your industry and company.
6) Compatibility. Again, not all clouds are created equal. There could be compatibility issues with operating systems, apps, image formats – issues you need to know about before you choose your provider, not in the middle of a migration.
7) Lock-in. You may have felt locked-in with your aging on-prem systems or the cloud set-up you’re looking to leave. Don’t let it happen again. Does the provider have high fees for data transition or transfer? Is there a claw back of those original commitment discounts? Know your exit strategy so the next move isn’t a surprise mix of costs and difficulties.
So, keep your eyes skyward and if you need help finding your right cloud shape, feel free to connect with us at solutions@prolifics.com.
About Prolifics
Our client is a Fortune 500 health insurance provider (HIP), and one of the largest in the United States.
About our Client
HIP’s story is a common one. As their company grew, they’d purchase a license here or some storage space there to keep up with their growing business. But eventually, their IT infrastructure had become a sprawling — and expensive — entity made up of legacy, or outdated, components that required an inordinate number of licenses. These legacy components neither interacted with each other nor offered the flexibility a growing company needs to be successful.
The executives at HIP wanted to save money by reducing the number of legacy licenses they held and improve the company’s agility. They wanted to reach both of those goals by taking advantage of their organization’s existing and growing investment in Azure. Azure’s cloud technology offers better performance, increased scalability and improved security than traditional on-premises systems. However, HIP knew how deeply entangled their organization was with their existing system, and needed an expert partner to help them with their migration.
The Four Phases of the PAM Methodology
Prioritize: In this first phase, Prolifics ensures user communities at an organization understand the value of migrating to a modern environment. We also measure user communities’ readiness to migrate, and measure the legacy application(s) footprint that supports the community.
Assess: This phase examines the code/application supporting specific user communities in order to determine which of three migration options is applicable.
Migrate: In this phase, the selected migration option is executed.
Deploy: The code/application deployment is completed in this phase. We also manage the change to business processes and provide support to the user communities affected.
The experts at Prolifics have literally written the book on cloud migration. Based on our decades of experience moving from legacy systems to modern cloud platforms, we’ve developed the four-phase Prolifics Agile Migration (PAM) methodology, which clearly lays out the process of breaking away from a legacy system and moving to the cloud in a large-scale migration.
As a result of the migration plan we developed and implemented for HIP, the organization reached their goals. Not only will they save millions of dollars in licensing fees over the course of a year, they improved their agility by modernizing their systems and moving into the cloud.
A secondary result of our work with them surrounds data governance. HIP didn’t have a good handle on their data simply because their legacy systems didn’t allow them to. But HIP’s data governance and data integration teams are taking advantage of this migration to collect, organize, analyze and apply a universal set of standards to their data. As a result of this exercise, HIP no longer will lag behind in modern data governance standards, and they recognize that the more modern their systems are across the board, the more agile their business will be.
Prolifics is a global digital transformation leader with expertise in Data & AI,Integration & Applications, Business Automation, DevXOps, Test Automation and Cybersecurity across multiple industries. We provide consulting, engineering and managed services for all our practice areas at any point our clients need them. Vision to Value. Faster. It’s not just the Prolifics’ tagline, it’s what drives us. Connect with us – solutions@prolifics.com.
It’s there every day you come to work, waiting for you, month after month, year after year. Maybe it’s always been there. If you’re old enough, you may have a vague recollection of what came before it, but otherwise, yes – it’s always been there. Your old, commercial technology databases chugging away on your old on-prem or cloud appliance architecture.
Can it be different? It seems to be a tough sell. This old database / old architecture combo is literally your business. It’s ingrained into every part of your organization. You could have thousands and thousands of users. And it’s still considered by many people – especially the old-timers – to be secure, available and consistent. And others are just too nervous to suggest any type of move.
Yet, there are changes in the air. Data is exploding exponentially – and you can’t seem to get a grip on it, let alone analyze it. If you try to do something different with your current technology – say, something innovative – your provider’s license and audit police wag their finger and say, “no, no, no…” The only solution offered by them is to buy more of the same old stuff. But your budget keeps going down, and they make you buy whole bundles of things you don’t need just to get the pieces you do. And some of what you have is truly end-of-life – the provider will no longer support it. Something’s got to give, and you have to find a way out.
You know about open source. A community? To you it seems more like the wild, wild West. Is open source validated, certified, stable, secure? Well, today’s subject matter experts will tell you yes – this isn’t your father’s open source anymore. Organizations give into and take from it – meaning it’s constantly evolving and getting better. There are companies out there that will work with you to innovate the open source to what you need. Draconian licenses are gone. Customer-centric, business friendly terms are in. And your budget? Remember, it’s open source – you’re starting at free. How about a low-cost, innovative, object-oriented (not relational) database?
So where does this database zip (not chug) around on? On a modern cloud architecture. But, cloud decisions are important – while you already know the value proposition of the cloud, you need to choose the right one for your database and business.
Join us for the next episode of Innovation Sandbox, where Prolifics’ Chief Data Scientist Michael Gonzales, PhD (“Dr. G”) will host Tom Rieger, Senior Solutions Engineer for EDB. EDB is a leading contributor to open-source database system PostgreSQL. They’ll discuss modern databases on modern architecture – where there is innovation, business-friendly terms, and less (much less) cost.
Innovation Sandbox – “Commercial databases? You CAN check out anytime you like…”
PainScript connects physicians with their chronic pain and substance use disorder (SUD) patients daily. The platform tracks medication and care plan adherence through an easy-to-use, clinically validated app.
It provides:
A psychiatry practice needed a better way to monitor patients with chronic pain and SUD.
The practice validated this with research and nine peer-reviewed trials.
They wanted to scale their findings with a mobile app, but lacked the technical expertise. Investors were interested, but they required more than mock-ups. They wanted proof of a working, scalable app—and fast.
The new start-up, PainScript, struggled to find a technology partner who could meet the tight timeline. Then, they connected with Prolifics.
The Prolifics Innovation Center applied intellectual properties and accelerators not available at other firms. The team established a constant feedback loop to guide app creation.
Greg Hodgkinson, Chief Technology Officer and Worldwide Head of Engineering, explains:
“A critical factor for anything we build for a customer is their feedback cycles. This loop occurs weekly. Every two weeks, we run sprints and produce a prototype. The customer reviews it, gives feedback, and we adjust. That’s how we reached a minimum viable product (MVP). The feedback loop setup is what made the project successful.”
He adds:
“We ensured what got built was 100% aligned with the customer’s needs. As market conditions change, customer needs change too. Agile methodology allowed us to pivot quickly and adapt in real-time.”
Using Azure was key to PainScript’s launch and scalability.
Prolifics also leveraged Azure DevOps to manage work, streamline builds, and automate deployments.
Azure’s features eliminated common headaches like installation, server setup, and backup policies. Its speed enabled the team to move from idea to “up and running” in record time.
Dan Cohen, CEO of PainScript, said:
“Prolifics has been a terrific partner in every sense of the word. They were easy to work with and understood the challenges from the beginning.”
Prolifics built PainScript a working MVP that satisfied both the start-up and its investors.
Patients enjoy the convenience and stronger connection to their physicians. Doctors can make timely interventions, reducing healthcare costs and adverse outcomes.
With Azure’s scalability, PainScript can grow from a handful of users to hundreds of thousands rapidly.
Prolifics is a global digital transformation leader with expertise in:
We provide consulting, engineering, and managed services across industries at any point clients need them.
Vision to Value. Faster. It’s not just our tagline—it’s what drives us.
Connect with us: solutions@prolifics.com