Public vs Private
In the digital automation market, which includes workflow and business process automation, there are literally dozens of no-code or low-code platforms available as public cloud solutions. They range from products like Zapier to Tray.io. In general, they all provide easy-to-use interfaces for assembling cloud services together in order to automate processes. Some are geared towards individual users and some towards enterprise businesses. However, aside from the ones intended for individuals or very small businesses, they may require some significant setup, configuration, and administration.
Public cloud-based solutions have a number of advantages for process automation. You can sign up and get access to these services within minutes and have a new process up and running in a relatively short time.
However, the majority of these solutions operate by routing your data (and the subsequent responses) through a series of different cloud services. Not only is your process dependent on the continued existence of those cloud services, your sensitive business data is now fully exposed to each one and subject to a different set of legal terms and conditions for each service. If any of those services becomes inaccessible due to a variety of factors, you have a critical operational failure within your business. In addition, the security and privacy of your data is only as good as the weakest link in that service chain. That is why more and more companies are opting for private cloud or on-premises solutions.
This brings us to private cloud and on-premises solutions, which have certain key advantages over public cloud solutions:
- Data control
- Data privacy
- Data continuity
- Data security
Unfortunately, most private-cloud or on-premises solutions require significant effort to install, configure, and manage. Updates and new features often require significant planning and coordination to roll out properly. Together, these disadvantages serve to create a barrier to entry for all but the most determined companies.
But what if you found a private solution that has the same ease of deployment, updates, and usage found in public cloud solutions? Then this barrier to entry is significantly lessened.
iPhora Vision
This is our vision for iPhora, a radically new product that combines the ease of deployment, updates, and usage typically found in public cloud solutions with the data control, privacy, continuity, and security of private cloud/on-premise solutions.
In bringing the public cloud experience to your private environment, we focused on four areas:
- Product licensing
- Installation and configuration automation
- Simple one touch installation of applications and service connectors
- Seamless one touch updating and upgrading
Product Licensing
Public cloud solutions offer a wide variety of licensing options, ranging from freemium to enterprise level. This allows customers to start using the services quickly, with little or no investment, yet making it easy to upgrade the license to handle more users and provide more features. iPhora uses a similar model: licensing is as simple as registering and paying the initial license fee (for non-freemium versions). License upgrades are handled the same way. We will cover licensing in more detail in a future post.
Installation and Configuration
As we all know, HCL Domino can be one of the most secure application platforms available. However, in order to ensure the security of web applications, there are literally hundreds of settings that have to be properly configured. Normally, the job of locking down a Domino web server is done by an experienced administrator.
Yet, given our focus on providing iPhora to the broadest possible audience, we have be able to handle customers who have no Domino administrator. As part of our quest to provide a simple, one-touch installation process that can get iPhora up and running within minutes, we had to find a way to fully automate every aspect of the installation/configuration process, while at the same time, being flexible enough to handle unique and/or changing requirements.
In some cases, iPhora is added to an existing Domino installation, and in others, iPhora will be the first and only Domino server they will ever have. Trying to account for both situations was a major challenge. The HCL Domino One Touch setup provided some of this needed capabilities, but it did not have the fine control that we required.
Another factor driving our installation approach was the need for having iPhora Automate available on the HCL SoFy platform. HCL SoFy allows users to spin up their own test versions of iPhora Automate within minutes. Achieving a fully automated installation and configuration process that was fast, complete, and reliable required a great deal of effort. We were successful and iPhora is available on HCL SoFy right now.
By the way, a future post will discuss about bringing your own solutions to HCL SoFy.
Adding applications and service connectors
In the language of iPhora, the automated workflow processes you create are known as apps and those apps can be connected to public/private web services using service connectors. In addition to building your own apps and service connectors, you can utilize an increasing number of existing apps and connectors. The goal is to provide the same simple experience that one finds in installing phone apps. So iPhora includes a public/private app and service connector store where apps and service connectors can be securely installed using a one-touch installation process.
Updating and upgrading
As we all know, it is much easier for public-cloud service providers to keep themselves up to date because they have full control of their platforms and the entire process is transparent to their users, while updating and/or upgrading a private cloud or on-premises platform often requires significant effort.
To make the iPhora update/upgrade process seamless and easy, even for private cloud or on-premise installations, we had to create a process that did not rely on Domino replication and operated entirely via HTTPS. The process had to be able to handle the core iPhora components, as well as apps and connectors. After many iterations, we finally achieved an update/upgrade architecture that was fast and reliable. As you can see below, the update process for an application is initiated with a single click.
Summary
The advent of public cloud computing has brought forward a new level of user expectation, not just in the design of the user interface, but also in the deployment and management of the solution. By bring the public cloud experience to your private environment, a key barrier to entry is eliminated, enabling companies to take advantage of the security and control offered by private cloud or on-premises solutions.
Next time in our final post of “The iPhora Journey” series, we will bring everything together.
The iPhora Journey - Part 11 - Integration to Cloud-based Services for Business Users Made Simple
The iPhora Journey - Part 10 - ActionStream - the Heart of iPhora
The iPhora Journey - Part 9 - Flow-based Programming for Your User Interface
The iPhora Journey - Part 8 - Flow-based Programming
The iPhora Journey - Part 7 - Transforming Domino with Microservices
The iPhora Journey - Part 6 - An Application, Rethinking and Redefining
The iPhora Journey - Part 5 - Dammit Jim, I'm a LotusScripter not a JavaScripter
The iPhora Journey - Part 4 - JSON is King - The How
The iPhora Journey - Part 4 - JSON is King - The Why
The iPhora Journey - Part 3 - Creating an Integrated UI Framework
The iPhora Journey - Part 2 - Domino, the Little Engine that Could
The iPhora Journey - Part 1 - Reimagining Domino
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