SPM rollouts in Large Ent erprise: different iat ing exist ing cloud architectures

Transcription

1 SPM rollouts in Large Ent erprise: different iat ing exist ing cloud architectures 1

2 Table of contents Why this white paper?... 3 SPM for SMEs vs. SPM for LEs... 3 Why a multi-tenant and not single-tenant architecture for SPM?... 4 Why SAAS/PAAS and not IAAS for SPM?... 4 The 4 advantages of a true multi-tenant PAAS Solution... 5 Conclusion... 7 About beqom

3 Why this white paper? This white paper does not compare functionality between SPM solutions. To evaluate beqom on functionality, please refer to the solution document on our website. This paper focuses on architecture and what kind of architecture is required to leverage all the benefits from the cloud. Differentiating SPM solutions based on their cloud architecture and related benefits is a subtle and opaque exercise. First, the common SPM requirements for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) will be compared to those for Large Enterprises (LEs). Then, focusing on LEs, we will illustrate the differences between a vendor offering a single-tenant architecture versus a vendor that has a multi-tenant approach without compromising on flexibility. Finally we will discuss the benefits yielded by a vendor who adopts a pure SAAS/PAAS (Software as a service / Platform as a Service) architecture, versus a vendor that has integrated Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) components into its architecture. Selecting the vendor using the right architecture will yield a significant cost saving for the customer, along with the ability to deal with high volumes of data and users. SPM for SMEs vs. SPM for LEs SPM vendors focusing on medium & small enterprises (SMEs) were very fast in adopting the cloud. They provided a standard framework in which such SMEs could define their own processes. When it comes to LEs, SPM vendors cannot rely on a standard framework and one standard data model. Based on beqom s experience with over 100 LEs, these companies won t compromise their SPM requirements and fit a fully standardized framework that cannot adapt to their needs. beqom s focus is solely on LEs. This paper therefore focuses on LEs requirements. Digging into detail, one quickly discovers that each LE customer has its own tables, grids, forms, reports, rules, queries, models, etc. and that requirements change all the time often impacting the data model. Therefore each customer s data model has unique elements. A specific data model per customer is a real challenge for a cloud application vendor as it has a significant impact on cloud architecture. The most important one is the choice for a single- or multitenant architecture. 3

4 Why a multi-tenant and not single-tenant architecture for SPM? Multi-tenancy is the only way for SPM customers to benefit from the economies of scale the Cloud has to offer. beqom comes with a separate database instance per tenant in the public cloud whilst remaining a multi-tenant application allowing tenant specific UI components. To enable this, beqom has developed a Scripting Engine (unique for the cloud) for tenant specific UI development extensions and custom business functions, using system APIs. The tenant specific scripts are applied after any code update on each tenant. Your own instance of your beqom database therefore holds your specific data model or specific UI whilst you continue to enjoy regular product updates and enhancements from the vendor. This is innovative and unique and is a prerequisite to sustain a multi-tenant solution on the public cloud when dealing with customer specific data models. Single tenant Cloud SPM vendors cannot benefit and pass along to their customers the economies of scale the multi-tenant cloud model generates. Once the challenge of providing customer specific data models within a multi-tenant solution architecture has been solved, another challenge needs to be addressed: leverage a non-twisted SAAS/PAAS approach. Why SAAS/PAAS and not IAAS for SPM? Only those vendors who run a multi-tenant SAAS or PAAS solution from the public cloud with a state-ofthe-art application may claim elasticity, scalability, availability, universal access, automatic upgradability without version upgrades, compliance and security. On the other hand, SPM vendors running their database including an IAAS component are responsible for managing that infrastructure, its database version updates, the middleware, O/S, virtualization, servers, hard drives, storage, and networking. This means higher risk, higher costs, lower availability ratios because of maintenance downtimes and potential compliance issues. If the database needs to be configured in high availability mode, or needs to be tuned, indexed, clustered and partitioned for high volumes and performance, this will all be under the responsibility of the vendor. Whilst this additional cost for IAAS might be invisible for the end customer it will definitely not be neutral as for large roll-outs this cost will be very significant. Taking development, testing & preproduction instances into account does not really help here. The larger the rollout, the more these disadvantages will weigh. Can beqom claim a fully multi-tenant PAAS solution? Yes, and it is provided for all beqom cloud implementations. Still, there are few cases where our customers leverage the option to use an IAAS component within the PAAS architecture to take advantage of advanced OLAP technology. A new pure PAAS OLAP component has been announced and beqom will immediately adopt it once released. 4

5 The 4 advantages of a true multi-tenant PAAS Solution 1. Elasticity Elasticity is the utilization of the necessary amount of resources only when you need them. This is a feature offered by the public cloud providers. A vendor running his applications on a public cloud can thus pass this significant cost saver to his customers. Elasticity related to utilization SPM processes are indeed often calendar dependent. Whilst an SPM process could require low CPU and/or RAM during the last 3 weeks of the month, one could easily imagine that the full payee population is fore instance very active during the first week of each month and during the full month of January. Once these utilization patterns are confirmed the customer should benefit from significant infrastructure costs savings - likely up to 50% in the above example by not having to pay for a performing infrastructure when not needing it. Elasticity related to environment costs Environments used for new developments or tests are only relevant when new developments or tests are actually performed. The same is true for pre-production environments. In a public cloud setup, there is no need to pay for these environments when they are not used. With beqom being on the public cloud, the above-mentioned cost savings, both related to utilization and environment, are offered to our customers. Vendors without a multi-tenant PAAS cannot offer similar elasticity benefits and will therefore suffer higher infrastructure and maintenance costs that they will or will not pass on to their customers. 2. Scalability Not only is a public cloud offer elastic, it is also fully and instantaneously scalable. But, as we have experienced, not since a very long time. beqom and Microsoft engineers have worked together to solve performance limitations when is comes to the scale of the supported database and its related performance. End 2012, cloud databases such as MS Azure SQL, were limited in scale. In fact, MS Azure SQL was limited to 150gb by database instance. This limit prevented the implementation of large ICM projects. ICM commission schemes are often linked to database tables amounting to hundreds of gigabytes. The Turkcell database, fore instance, is multi-terabyte. This limitation has now disappeared thanks to a technique that is very similar to Microsoft's Parallel Data Warehouse hub model to distribute/federate workload into fully scalable resources. beqom leverages this public cloud technology and pilot customers rollout databases exceeding Terabytes. But most SPM vendors claim these kind of roll-outs already! And this for quite some time! This is correct. But they likely run an instance of the database on an IAAS, what needs to be avoided. 5

6 3. Availability SPM vendors claiming to run on a public cloud should guarantee a very high availability for their customers. They can pass the availability defined in their own SLA with the cloud vendor to their customers. The leading cloud vendors have unseen infrastructure enabling them to offer >99% availability. If a datacenter fails fore instance, another one picks it up. Availability problems can be classified into three broad categories: Failure of individual servers, devices, or network connectivity Corruption, unwanted modification, or deletion of data Widespread loss of facilities Solving high availability is directly related to redundancy. To obtain high availability beqom runs on a public cloud with local and global redundancy. Each data center runs 2 local copies of the platform. Additionally, 3 geographical replications exist in the dedicated datacenters located in the 3 different regions of the world. SPM vendors who have integrated IAAS into their offer are responsible for the availability of that part of the architecture. Not just the availability of the underlying infrastructure (which could be guaranteed by the cloud vendor) but the availability of a performing, consistent, updated, indexed, clustered, partitioned and backed-up database. No SPM vendor, due to its size and limited resources availability, can claim comparable availability ratios when running an IAAS component. 4. Compliance through Federation Some cloud vendors, such as Microsoft, provide universal access to a federated, distributed database. beqom takes full advantage of this and is rolling out its first application using it. A federated, distributed database stores data in multiple servers, dispersed over a network of interconnected datacenters located in very different places. Unlike parallel systems, in which the processors are tightly coupled and constitute a single database system, a distributed database system consists of loosely coupled sites that share no physical components. A federated database comes handy for large global roll-outs. It allows users around the planet to have a connection to a physical database instance located in a nearby datacenter. This does not only help in terms of performance but is crucial when it comes to compliance rules such as the European data protection act and the fact that in certain countries banks are not allowed to store data outside their region. SPM vendors not offering a federated database will have to circumvent some current or future legislation and may suffer performance issues for end users located at the other side of the planet. 6

7 Conclusion How does these benefits apply to beqom? beqom runs on a multi-tenant public cloud in a PAAS mode and offer customers the ability to define their own specific data model, a must for LE SPM deployments. beqom s cloud solution makes this possible because it is not a migration from the on-premise solution to a private or public cloud. It is the result of a brand new built from scratch early 2012 R&D department focusing on PAAS on the public Cloud and mobile apps. It s this radical approach that allowed beqom to release a state of the art multi-tenant PAAS on the public cloud solution early It has been designed together with the providers of the largest global public cloud and is therefore based on the most recently available cloud innovations. With multi-tenancy on a PAAS architecture it can provide its customers with the economies of scale, elasticity, scalability and compliancy they expect from the cloud. beqom therefore has a jump start on PAAS adoption and true multi-tenancy for large SPM rollouts. And beqom offers an additional key advantage, allowing specific customer models that are crucial for large enterprises without a compromise on the architecture. For the reasons described above, a vendor providing customer-specific data models by adopting a single tenant logic, or using an Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) as part of his solution cannot claim similar advantages for its customers. 7

8 About beqom Happiness is the best driver for success. Our mission is to make the workforce of our customers happy. beqom drives happiness by allowing business managers to lead, align and motivate employees and partners. The beqom Total Compensation platform is used globally across all industry sectors by over 100 large companies such as Microsoft and Vodafone. It addresses all Performance and Compensation aspects such as Salary Review, Bonus, Long-Term Incentives, Commissions, Benefits, Non-cash rewards and all key drivers towards Employee Performance and Sales Performance. HR, Sales and Finance organizations leverage our platform to drive performance, retention, cost optimization and... happiness among their people. beqom to make your people happy. 8