Teradata Amps Up Cloud And Consulting Offerings

Doug Henschen

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Doug Henschen is former Vice President and Principal Analyst where he focused on data-driven decision making. Henschen’s Data-to-Decisions research examines how organizations employ data analysis to reimagine their business models and gain a deeper understanding of their customers. Henschen's research acknowledges the fact that innovative applications of data analysis requires a multi-disciplinary approach starting with information and orchestration technologies, continuing through business intelligence, data-visualization, and analytics, and moving into NoSQL and big-data analysis, third-party data enrichment, and decision-management technologies. Insight-driven business models are of interest to the entire C-suite, but most particularly chief executive officers, chief digital officers,…...

Read more

Teradata is thinking outside of box sales with VMware, AWS and Azure deployment options and new solutions and consulting services.

At this week’s Teradata Partners Conference in Atlanta the company hit several important cloud milestones with its “Teradata Everywhere” and “Borderless Analytics” announcements. And in another sign that it’s evolving, Teradata also announced a range of analytic solutions supported by consulting services.

Teradata Everywhere is the ability to run the same database and workloads without alteration in multiple deployment environments. The choices include on-premises systems, VMWare-based private-cloud instances, Teradata’s Managed Cloud services and Teradata Database on public clouds including Amazon Web Services and, by year end, Microsoft Azure.

Teradata Amps Up Cloud & Consulting from Constellation Research on Vimeo.

The newest options here are Teradata on VMware and parallel processing support on Amazon Web Services. The Teradata Database on AWS offering was introduced earlier this year, but it was initially limited to single-node deployment. Now you can exploit the power of massively parallel processing on up to 32 nodes, and Teradata says it will keep raising the node ceiling. MPP deployment on Microsoft Azure is set for the fourth quarter.

MyPOV on Teradata Everywhere. Teradata pre-announced most of these offerings last year, but it’s good to see it following through on both MPP (without that, what’s the point of using Teradata?) and Microsoft Azure. What was surprising was seeing an Amazon Web Services exec keynoting at Partners. That’s a good sign that Teradata is truly embracing the cloud, but I think the VMware option will be even more popular than the public cloud options -– at least for existing customers. For now, VMware deployment is capped at eight virtual servers and 32 virtual nodes, but that’s big capacity and Teradata says server and node capacities will increase over time.

Software Supports ‘Borderless Analytics’

It’s all well and good to have multiple deployment options, but the key to hybrid success is flexible data-access, querying and systems management. The borderless concept is supported by the latest versions of Teradata QueryGrid, for accessing data across heterogeneous environments, and Teradata Unity, for automated workload orchestration across multiple Teradata systems.

QueryGrid already supported unified access and querying against Teradata, Teradata Aster, third-party relational databases, Hadoop, and analytic compute clusters. That support extends to cloud instances of these sources. QueryGrid brought together what were separate Teradata-to-Hadoop, Teradata-to-Oracle and Teradata-to-Aster connectors. A rewrite due out by year end will unify the underlying architecture so there will be single connectors for all target systems instead of multiple connectors. The new version will deliver better and more consistent query performance, and, according to Teradata, better support for security, encryption and performance monitoring across all sources.

Teradata Unity software automates workload distribution to ensure high availability and query performance within service-level demands. The latest release extends that workload balancing capability across on-prem, private, managed and public cloud Teradata instances. A Unity upgrade expected in the first half of 2017 will capture data changes on one Teradata system and automatically copy them to other Teradata systems. This will support cloud-based backup and disaster recovery use cases, for example, by automatically keeping on-premises and cloud-based systems in sync.

MyPOV on Borderless Analytics. QueryGrid is very popular among Teradata customers. Most connections are bidirectional, and it can push down queries into source systems including Hadoop to reduce overall query times. Unity is an extra-cost option, but the automation and workload distribution capabilities are hugely helpful when running multiple Teradata systems. As companies tap cloud instances, they’ll use Unity to support bursting scenarios wherein they seamlessly shift spikey or low-priority workloads into the cloud to better handle peak workloads and meet service-level agreements.

Teradata As Solutions Provider

Teradata got its start by selling to the business, not IT. In his keynote at Partners, Teradata CEO Victor Lund, who was appointed this spring after Mike Koehler was ousted, admitted that the company lost its way in part because it lost sight of selling to business needs. About half of Teradata’s revenue is already tied to solutions and consulting, but that ratio may grow given the Partners announcement of new analytic solutions, methodologies and accelerators backed by Teradata consulting.

Customer Journey Analytic Solution: This offering blends Teradata’s Real-Time Interaction Manager, Customer Interaction Manager and Teradata Aster ensemble analytics to track end-to-end customer paths across channels (email, online, in-store, call center, etc.). It then delivers recommended next-best actions and offers based on historical as well as  in-the-moment behaviors.

The Customer Journey Analytic solution is differentiated from similar-sounding offerings in that it addresses on-premises and call-center interaction as well as digital channels, says Teradata. And by incorporating real-time context, you’ll avoid pushing offers when someone just received that offer in a different channel, just purchased or is trying to resolve a service problem and is in no mood to purchase.

RACE Services and Business Value Frameworks: RACE is a Rapid Analytic Consulting Engagement. The first step is aligning with the customer around Business Value Frameworks that provide starting points for high-value use cases. The prebuilt  Frameworks define hundreds of analytic use cases, according to Teradata, covering domains including customer and marketing, supply chain, product, operations, and finance and risk. Example use cases include Customer Satisfaction Index and Communications Compliance.

Analytics of Things Accelerators: Based on proven engagements with large industrial companies, these accelerators combine professional services with prebuilt starting-point content including data models, data transformations, analytic models, data visualizations and KPIs. The idea is to speed and take risk out of IoT projects. The first four accelerators are: Condition-Based Maintenance (think predictive maintenance and parts ordering); Manufacturing Performance Optimization (think maximizing equipment uptime); Sensor Data Qualification Accelerator (to determine which sensor data to clean up, filter out and keep); and Visual Anomaly Prospect Accelerator (for detecting actionable patterns in data).

MyPOV on Teradata’s Solutions Focus. Teradata is understandably putting an even bigger emphasis on solutions and consulting given that revenue from on-premises systems is and will remain under pressure. Data warehouse optimization projects are accelerating that trend as companies shift workloads onto Hadoop or cloud options including Teradata’s own services. The shift is one reason Teradata in 2014 acquired ThinkBig Analytics, which specializes in Hadoop and open source services and consulting. In July the company upped the ante by acquiring London-based Big Data Partnership, a startup that provides big data solutions and training.

The open question for Teradata is whether it can grow the pipeline of solutions and consulting engagements even as the pace of on-premises deployments and upgrades declines. New hardware purchases have historically triggered such engagements, so Teradata will have to find new ways to get its foot in the door. Another competitive threat is systems integrators that have typically been Teradata partners but that are ramping up analytics practices of their own. Teradata’s enviable list of existing customers and new cloud engagements are obvious places to look for solution and consulting opportunities.

What was clear at the Partners Conference is that market forces and this year’s leadership change have sparked both new thinking and a back-to-basics focus on business value. That’s leading to innovation and lots of new deployment and solutions options aimed at fast and flexible deployment and delivering value to the business.

Related Reading:
Teradata Disrupts Self With Cloud Push
SAP Reportedly Buying Altiscale to Power Big Data Services
Democratize the Data Lake: Make Big Data Accessible

Father of the Internet Vint Cerf to Keynote at Constellation's Connected Enterprise

Aubrey Coggins

Constellation Research

Aubrey (Levinstone) Coggins manages Constellation's marketing and communications programs and is the producer of DisrupTV, a weekly Web series on innovation and the enterprise.  She previously served as a senior manager of corporate communications at Egnyte and held account roles at Access Communications and The Hoffman Agency. Born and raised in Texas, she received a bachelor's degree in Public Relations from The University of Texas at Austin – Hook ‘em!   ...

Read more

Today, in a press release, we annouced the headlining keynote speakers for our sixth annual executive innovation conference, Connected Enterprise.

Vint Cerf, one of the “fathers of the Internet” and chief Internet evangelist at Google, will anchor a keynote panel alongside Doc Searls, distinguished author and journalist, and Mei Lin Fung, social change agent and co-founder of the People Centered Internet. Dan Heath, founder of the Change Academy and best-selling author of “Made to Stick,” and Whitney Johnson, award-winning author of “Disrupt Yourself,” will also join the main stage.

If you haven't attended, Connected Enterprise is an immersive three-day summit that features interactive panels, 1:1 interviews with visionary market makers, executive exchanges, fireside chats and disruptive technology demos. Executives from across the globe, including leaders from American Cancer Society, Atlanta Hawks, Bayer, Capgemini, Clorox, Intel, General Electric, Google, Johns Hopkins University, Salesforce, San Francisco Giants, Tesla, The University of Texas System, and the U.S. federal government, attend the conference and leave with the knowledge and network to instill a culture of innovation and transformation for their organizations. 

During the event, we will also announce the winners to the 2016 SuperNova Awards on Thursday, October 27. Voting is now open, so be sure to get in your votes before September 21. In additon, we'll be celebrating our sixth anniversary with our traditional Cosmic Feast.

Can't wait to see you October 26-28, 2016 at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay, California. 

BoxWorks Event Report - Box is on the run with a platform

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

Read more

We had the opportunity to attend BoxWorks in San Francesco, held from September 7th till 9th 2016. It was record attendance for Box, with over 7k registrants, the largest BoxWorks ever. 
 

So take a look at my musings, I was joined by fellow colleague Alan Lepofsky at the conference - and here in the video): (if the video doesn’t show up, check here)
 

No time to watch – here is the 1-2 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

 

 

Event Report - Box Box\works 2016 - Box is on the run from Holger Mueller

Want to read on? Here you go: Always tough to pick the takeaways – here are my Top 3:

Box is a viable business – Not too many years ago there was a concern that the File Synch & Share market would get commoditized, and players like e.g. Box being squeezed out by the entrance of larger players like e.g. Microsoft or Google. Today we can say that this concern has not materialized, and Box is on the path to become a 100M / quarter enterprise vendor, having turned around the potential threats into partners / frenemies / co-opetitors: Both Microsoft (with Peggy Johnson) and Google (with Diane Greene) were on stage with partnership announcement. Quite a remarkable turnaround.

Product Innovation in the core – One of the reasons why Box is doing well is that the vendor is (more than I have seen in the past) actively working on improving the core product. A new user interface is available (finally) and addresses a number of usability concerns many have been vocal before. The new UI feels less clunky and is more in synch with 2016 UI best practices (e.g. dynamic re-sizing). The collaboration on Box Notes will be improved. The most prominent announcement though was the new Relay product – that in conjunction with IBM – will bring light workflow capabilities to the Box product, something Box has been missing (and / or avoiding?) for a long time vis a vis long entrenched workflow / document vendors like EMC’s Documentum, Opentext and others.
  

Product Innovation with Box Platform – The newly unveiled Box Platform, that enables developers to build content centric applications is off to a strong start, with over 80k developers, 2k apps and most interestingly 50% of APIs calls of Box overall. The last statistic shows that there was demand for building content centric applications in the market and the Box install base. From a load / platform perspective Box would be only half the vendor it is today, something few may notice today, but has severe (positive) effects in the medium run. With the additional platform load Box not only gets more customers and users, but also gets better economies of scale to operate its platform and last but not least gets more of an interesting partner for large cloud vendors (no surprise AWS, Microsoft, Google and IBM were there – on stage and as sponsors).

But developer adoption does not come by itself, so it is good to see that the Box Platform team is focused on developer experience – which first and foremost starts with developer productivity. Building content centric apps is not trivial from a user experience, so providing controls with the Box UI toolkit is key for developer productivity, as well as an important decision criterion to use Box as a platform. Box has also done work for new media (360-degree video e.g. from drones featured prominently) – and expanded its native viewer capabilities, that are key to keep a seamless user experience. And when applications have been built, they need to be operated and maintained, the new Box Developer Console is a good version one product to address this… And documents often have legal ramification, so apart from Box Zones (available since earlier this year), making available compliance APIs is another key step the Box Platform team has taken to make it easier for developers to address the pesky and tedious compliance questions.

MyPOV

A good event for Box, that not only has reached critical mass but also is progressing well at creating the ‘2nd leg’ with the Box platform. It is early days, but good progress and promising new capabilities are in the pipeline. Things will look (even) better for Box once those will be delivered over the next quarters.

On the concern side there was little progress and announcement on the machine learning side. As an overall trend the intelligence permeates the LCD, which means the intelligence and the actor is not the human anymore – but the software behind it. In many cases today already, software is the better ‘driver’ for content than humans, it is cheaper, never sleeps, does not make mistakes, and if programmed correctly is bias free. We got a glance in a presentation of the ‘future of content management’, it is good to see Box is seeing all the trends, next will be to get them on the product roadmap. It also has some existing partners who are strong in the space (all mentioned above). Sharing documents into the overall business data maelstrom on Hadoop is another area where Box needs to spend some thought (and potential product development) cycles. Lastly Box Zones is a key step forward, but like with all other SaaS vendors, the multi-spliced-multi-location problem is still unsolved. Letting customers select their favorite location is not a medium term viable solution.

For Box customers these are all welcome developments, the new UI certainly having the most immediate, direct impact. Watching the developments around Relay will be a key area for customers to follow – and to consider which workflow around documents may be moved to Box. Equally customers and prospects who are looking at building their own content centric apps have plenty to use and more to come for them. There is little concern at the moment that developers cannot build very powerful content centric next generation applications on the Box Platform, a key value proposition today. Coupled with Box Zones this makes Box also a good partner for global use cases.

Finally it was refreshing to hear a vendor speak so openly about technical debt and how to actively address this phenomena which is part of all software development, but seldom addressed so openly and directly. Good to see, and kudos to the Box team to have the courage to openly talk about the challenge.

Overall encouraging progress and signals from BoxWorks. Stay tuned.

P.S. Checkout Alan Lepofsky's event report here he has the content, collaboration and social angle.

More on Box
 

• Event Preview - What Alan Lepofsky and I want Box to address this BoxWorks [2015] - read here

And more platform Event / Progress Reports (based on recency):
 

• Event Report - Pivotal SpringOne Platform - Spring in its 2nd spring - read here


• Event report - AWS Enterprise Summit 2016 Frankfurt - The German Road to Cloud adoption is ... long - read here
  Event Report - SAP Insider Vienna - HCP, BI and SuccessFactors are the takeaways - read here
  Event Report- Alteryx Inspire 2016 - Enabling change agents in data management - read here
  Event Report - Cloud Foundry Cloud Foundry Summit - It's good to be king of PaaS - read here
  Event Report - Google I/O 2016 - Android N soon, Google assistant sooner and VR / AR later - read here
  Event Report - Infosys Confluence - The Future Watch is Software + People ?- read here
  Event Report - Microsoft Build 2016 - A platform vision and plenty of tools for next generation applications - read here
  Event Report – Google Google Cloud Platform Next – Key Offerings for (some of) the enterprise - read here
  Progress Report - Cloudera grows product, verticals and globally - now needs to execute - read here
  Progress Report - Hortonworks wants to become the next generation for the enterprise – a tall ask - read here
  Progress Report - Oracle Cloud - More ready than ever, now needs adoption - read here
  Progress Report - Workday Tech Summit - Good Progress, More Insights, Less Concerns - read here
  Event Report - Oracle Openworld 2015 - Top 3 Takeaways, Top 3 Positives & Concerns - read here
  Event Report - SAPtd Las Vegas 2015 - Analyics, HCP, and Fiori BUILD - read here
  Event Report - Salesforce Dreamforce - Value for customers - but some concerns on direction - read here

Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here). (The Day #1 Storify is here - the Analyst Day is here).
 

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.

2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

Event Report: BoxWork 2016

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

Read more

This week I attended BoxWorks 2016, Box's annual conference in San Francisco.

If you don't have (15m) time to watch the video below where I review the major news, then just read this one thing:
Box is no longer just a cloud file-storage service, it's a platform for building content-centric applications.

My coverage of the event is mainly focused on the collaboration/productivity tools. If you'd like more details on the application developer/infrastructure/platform side of things, please click here to view my colleague Holger Mueller's event report.

Here are the key product announcements:

In the video below, I discuss the news in detail, including my advice on areas I think Box should improve in.

Constellation Announces 2016 SuperNova Award Finalists

Constellation is pleased to announce the finalists for the sixth annual SuperNova Awards. The Constellation SuperNova Awards recognize leaders and teams for their innovative application of disruptive technology in business.

“The finalists of the 2016 SuperNova Awards demonstrate a deep understanding of the elements required for digital transformation,” said R “Ray” Wang, chairman and founder at Constellation Research. “Among this year's finalists are individuals employing technology to speed organ transplant matches, predict the spread of disease, improve construction site safety, and drive engagement at the ATP. I know the SuperNova Award finalists will inspire other technology leaders to implement new technologies and transform their organizations.”

2016 SuperNova Award Finalists

Data to Decisions

• Alda Mizaku, Mercy
• Ming Zhou, Lenovo   
• Gabriel Gross, Meteo Protect  
• Reid Levesque, Royal Bank of Canada   
• Madhav Marathe, Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech   
• Blake Sanders, American Cancer Society
• Murray Swartzberg , ATP World Tour
• Mok Choe, Toronto Dominion Bank
• Jamie Sutphin, UNOS 

Digital Marketing Transformation

• Blake Cahill, Royal Phillips 
• Kerianne Mellott, eHarmony  
• Kristie Allen, Albertson’s Companies     
• Lindsay Campman, Seven Feathers Casino Resort    

Future of Work - HCM

• Patrick Ross III, Team Rubicon 
• Eric Record, Steel Dynamics 
• Marina Perez, NEC Corporation of America 
• Mark Coy, Summa Technologies 
• Cathy Pryor, Hibbett Sports

Future of Work – Social Business

• Sara Moore, SEA Media, LLC   
• Dave Murphy , Pepper Construction
• Sanay Bhirud, National Instruments    
• Mike Hincks, Vivint Solar  
• Sam Trachtenberg, AdRoll    
• Barry Harvey, University of West Florida Innovation Institute    
• Mohan Nair, Cambia Health Solutions    

Internet of Things

• Scott Strickland; Jim Flatt, Denon + Marantz Electronics 
• Dina Milazzo, GE Digital 
• Wouter Kerkhof, Springg, A Dutch Sprouts Company   
• Michael Skaff, Masons of California   
• Jonathan Foucheaux, Solomon Group

Matrix Commerce

• Ken Finnerty, UPS 
• John Lee, MGM Resorts International   
• Ryan Johnson, Lovesac   
• The Home Depot
• Fred Tiso, Citrix   
• Ed McMahon, Epec Engineered Technologies    

Next Generation Customer Experience

• Murray Swartzberg, ATP World Tour 
• Scott Strickland; Jim Flatt, Denon + Marantz Electronics 
• Kriti Kapoor, HP Inc. 
• Kristin Carlos, Qantas Airways Ltd. 
• Olay, P&G
• Jacqui Darcy, NextGen Healthcare 
• Amihai Zeltzer, Stanley Healthcare
• Roshan Koonja, Constance Hotels and Resorts

Safety and Privacy  

• John N. Stewart, Cisco   

Technology Optimization and Innovation

• Ed McMahon, Epec Engineered Technologies
• Roddy McKaig , Shaw Industries Group, Inc.
• Kyle Rehner , Kroll International, LLC.
• Daniel Probert, Camfed   
• Mike Hincks , Vivint Solar

The SuperNova Award judges recognized entrants who demonstrated the foresight, creativity and measured audacity to successfully implement emerging technologies for their organizations. Public voting will take place online from September 12-21. The winners will be announced at the SuperNova Awards Gala on October 27 in Half Moon Bay, California, during Constellation’s Connected Enterprise.

Were you named a finalist? Find more information about the Awards here. 

Why IoT Devices need to be Digital Assets plus connecting by LoRa and NFC

Andy Mulholland

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Andy Mulholland is Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on cloud business models. Formerly the Global Chief Technology Officer for the Capgemini Group from 2001 to 2011, Mulholland successfully led the organization through a period of mass disruption. Mulholland brings this experience to Constellation’s clients seeking to understand how Digital Business models will be built and deployed in conjunction with existing IT systems. Coverage Areas Consumerization of IT & The New C-Suite: BYOD, Internet of Things, IoT, technology and business use Previous experience: Mulholland co authored four major books that chronicled the change and its impact on Enterprises starting in 2006 with the well-recognised book ‘Mashup Corporations’ with Chris Thomas of Intel. This was followed in…...

Read more

Every business has, and uses, Assets to be able to create the value by which it competes. The difference between ‘has’ and ‘uses’ reflects how efficiently those Assets can be made to work, which in turn reflects on the extent to which those Assets can be managed. IoT simply connects Assets to provide the data and dynamic management to enable business optimization of operations.  But what are these ‘Assets’ that can create new competitive capabilities?

Here are three meaningful descriptions as to what is Asset in respect of Business value; Definition ‘1) An Asset is an economic resource, or something of value’; Definition 2) ‘Some thing possessed by a Business entity from which future economic benefits may be obtained’. Definition 3) Military; ‘A person from whom intelligence is obtained’.

IoT combines all three; Definition; A Device from which is intelligence is obtained, transforming the capabilities of the Device as a Business resource to deliver economic benefits.

Today Enterprises seek more and better data to guide their actions than in turbulent markets then at any time in the past. IoT brings rich new sources and types of data that can be combined through ‘IoT Event Engines’ to create a new generation of valuable ‘insights’.  Many Business Managers now ‘understand’ that IoT data delivered through ‘real time’ event processing enables enterprises to exploit events, and operational situations, as they occur. True though this is, it is only part of the fundamental shift IoT brings in capability to manage Business Operations at the level of Asset optimization.

To define IoT Technology as using sensors data to improve ‘real time’ event reaction alone is similar to defining Client-Server Technology merely by the capability for PCs to share common data. The Business Transformation introduced by Client-Server technology resulted in the Enterprise optimized business processes of ERP. IoT brings a similar level of Business Transformation by allowing key fixed processes to be changed dynamically to deploy individual business Assets in optimized response orchestrations, (Agility).

Mention Digital Business models and the term ‘agility’ is usually brought into the discussion to define the requirement for dynamic responsiveness to opportunities. The missing element in such a discussion is how this achieved by the mass connectivity of IoT to extend Business control of critical Assets. Creating Agility requires new Business skills in the use of IoT to extend current online Digital Business model into the ability to compete in the connected Digital Economy.

The twenty plus year history of Business Process Re-Engineering, and ERP, (with its focus on improving costs by reducing variation and fixing responses), now needs to integrate with the dynamics of IoT connected Digital Business. Competitive ‘Read and Respond’ to market place events and opportunities requires a continuous focus on dynamically optimizing deployment of critical Business Assets. But what is meant by ‘Digital’ Assets?

A Digital Asset is anything that is capable of defining itself, its history and current situation through accessible data. IoT connectivity makes this data available to allow direct operational intervention and decision-making at a granular level. A complex asset such as a General Electric Railroad Locomotive has some 15,000 individual data reporting points that allow customization of the engine to its operating circumstances. The Edge Building in Amsterdam uses 28000 individual data points to dynamically adapt the building to weather, power, occupants, etc. Equally a simple Bus stop with data points to monitor Bus movements can assist passengers to plan their journeys. And of course, the best known example of all, Uber tying Taxis to People around their locations and circumstances.  In each of these cases the granularity of individual Assets at different levels is combined through IoT Technology into a dynamically competitive Business optimized response.

The IoT revolution is driven by cost reduction in chips with changes in connectivity capabilities. The diversity of types of Digital Assets is matched by increased diversity in networking and data protocols. Though the name IoT suggests everything is connected like IT via the Internet that is not necessarily true as the manner in which IoT and Digital Assets are deployed does not correspond to the use of IT. There are four basic techniques; Wired or Wireless into IP Networks; Telecom Mobility Networks; LoRa, Low Power Long Range Networks and NFC, Near Field Connectivity.

IP and Telecom Mobility Networks are already familiar to IT departments existing IT and Mobility networking activities, but LoRa and NFC are unfamiliar yet introduce extremely necessary capabilities to manage IoT Digital Assets. IoT devices are different in what, and how, they are deployed to the connected services provided by IP and Telecom Mobility networks. Two previous blogs have explored this issue; the first posed the question IoT and Network Connectivity Management, or AoT and Data Flow Management on the Network? And the second explored the integrated operation of The challenge of the ‘Final Mile’, Asset Digitisation and Data Flow Management - Making sure that your Graph Databases and Event Engines have all the data

This blog is a quick introduction to the two ‘new’ networks; LoRa is relatively new and designed specifically for low data rate IoT connectivity whilst Near Field Connectivity for IoT, (as opposed to RFID) has attracted less attention than its practical advantages would suggest it should be receiving.

LoRa was designed specifically for IoT sensor data transmissions where data volumes are low, connectivity to transmit infrequent, and cost is a significant issue. Existing technologies ranging from Bluetooth, through more specialized network types, such as Zigbee, were all developed for local ‘on site’ deployment. Other features needed to be optimized rather than low cost large geographical coverage that IoT Sensing systems in sectors such as Utilities, or Transportation systems, require. The adoption of Cellular Technologies from 4G to 5G offer improved coverage, and relative high data transmission rates, but are both costly and high in power demands.

Started some years ago, before IoT deployment requirements were fully understood, LTE, Long Term Evolution, was seen as the answer to the Telecom Industry requirement for a less expensive localized service with good transmission rates and coverage, but unfortunately LTE also comes with relatively high power demands that make extended battery operation all, but impossible.

Low Power, Long Range, LoRa, provides up to 50 Kbits transmission rates, but with low power demands that allow sensors to run off batteries for several years. The long-range capability reduces cost in transmission towers, and has resulted in full countrywide coverage already being made operational in the Netherlands and South Korea. Further details on LoRa architecture can be found here.

Near Field Connectivity, NFC, is a mature, well developed, technology normally associated with RFID tags, however IoT sensors using the RFID / NFC are already deployed in mainstream systems to connect machine sensors.  (As an example SAP ERP Manufacturing). Radio Frequency Identification, RFID, offers many variations from Passive to Active Devices and Readers, but all have the fundamental advantage that each Device/Tag/Sensor chip has a unique ID Serial number.

NFC / RFID architecture enables the ‘Reader’ on detecting a Chip to request its unique Serial number identification in a security challenge to establish connectivity authorization. The unique ID can be used to align with additional information, either on the Chip itself, or by locating a separate data file across the network. NFC / RFID technology does have the benefits of maturity and standards, but unfortunately there is no single standard. Further details on RFID including NFC architecture can be found here and a slide deck on applying NFC to IoT is here.

Using NFC/RFID to identify and connect to Digital Assets brings a whole new range of capabilities to IoT Systems as a number of recent articles have pointed out. In the article ‘Connecting the unconnected in IoT’ there is a useful table showing where the traditional so-called ‘Final Mile’ connectivity shifts to a final 10 meters, (or 30 feet), connectivity benefiting from using NFC/RFID technology.

The automatic assumption that IoT means all Devices will be permanently connected is true where the Device’s value lies in semi continuous dynamic event notifications and/or large data transfers. However many Digital Assets need to impart significant data only at certain times and conditions. Connections, initiated by an engineer using a secure challenge, when physically ‘present’ in the final 10 meters zone over come many security issues.

Additionally it allows data to be carried by a Digital Asset, such as a Truck, that may be serviced in different workshops by different companies. The workshop engineers of a certified and authorized Dealer can gain access to the individual Truck operating history for their service work with a minimum of ‘technology’ and centralized services infrastructure.

‘Presence Connectivity’ opens up a realm of new possibilities for creating and managing IoT devices as Digital Assets, though the concept will be new to many working on IoT solutions. This is an extremely flexible technology with too many options to cover in a blog so what follows is a starting point to learn more.

Tego is one of the most widely known and successful companies in the NFC/RFID market providing a very wide range of solutions. This makes the Tego web site a good source of information for those seeking to know more about the Technology as well as the breadth of capabilities that NFC/RFID technology brings to Digital Asset Management. Other significant players who provide interesting information on RFID use of IOT are; Siemens, Omni-ID, and Smartrac.

Tego provide a thought-provoking summary of the value of NFC/RFID for Digital Asset data; “such as when and how they were made, configuration, authenticity, chain of custody, maintenance history, sensor data on current condition, and usage history. This information can be available at the point of use to authorized users using a simple smartphone reader/writer, and/or uploaded to a centralized analytic and management system. Today this is implemented as a smart tag on the product or component. The metadata about the product then becomes part of the product itself, readily accessible at the point of use. Chips can be designed into products because they are small, inexpensive, long-lived, and operate flawlessly even when exposed to harsh environments”.

An interesting Case Study that brings perspective to how the diversity of IoT Digital Assets and connectivity are combined in a solution, (including LoRa and NFC/RFID connectivity), is the Mercedes Self Driving Bus trials in Amsterdam. In July 2016 on its 20km, or 12 miles, trip across a busy town environment. The Mercedes CityPilot technology links standalone autonomous self driving operation with onboard Digital Asset Management as well as interacting and communicating with IoT devices in its external environment.

There have been several brief outline stories on the July 2016 event when a Mercedes prototype Bus drove a complex route in busy urban conditions using its own onboard capabilities as well as networked interaction with Traffic Lights, Bus Stops and its own transport control center as part of coordinated Smart City transportation.

The Mercedes Bus uses a mixture of IoT technologies; a 3G Telecom link continually reports position and numbers of passengers onboard as the basis for Digital Smart Services Apps used by passengers and city transport operations; LoRa is used to provide a low cost simple, dynamic event reporting service for preventative maintenance monitoring of unplanned events that affect operational readiness such heater failure; NFC provides localized interaction with traffic light, and Intelligent Bus Stops where the physical local presence triggers the connection and interaction. Finally the Bus collects huge amounts of data on every aspect of the trial operations that is accessed by authorized Engineers using NFC/RFID interrogation of the onboard Digital Asset chips when the Bus is off the road in the workshop.

Taking this example to the next level of a fleet of such buses operating in the high traffic urban and city environment of a Smart City. There is a need to combine all transportation elements in a complex integrated operating environment that ultimately will go beyond just the buses. Individual Trains, Buses, Taxis and Cars will need to interact dynamically and continuously as they traverse the crowded, busy city infrastructure.

For these interactions to successfully operate requires immense orchestration. Every transport unit needs to be capable of defining what it is, what it is capable of, together with its role as an IoT Digital Asset. The sheer number of Devices/ Assets in operation at once calls for an architectural approach to deciding when, how, and in what format IoT connectivity is made.

The Services of Digital Business will need to achieve ‘Agility’ through more than the simple availability of more Data! Better data at the right time/place is required, and in the world of IoT that means more than one to one permanent, or semi permanent connectivity, instead the use of different connectivity options adds a further dimension.

SAP SuccessFactors SConnect - Event Report

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

Read more

We had the opportunity to attend SAP SuccessFactors SConnect event in Las Vegas this week, held from August 29th till 31st 2016 at the Venetian in Las Vegas. The conference had (in my records) the best attendance since I am attending in 2013, with over 3000 attendees coming from customers, prospects and partners.
 

 

So take a look at my musings on the event here: (if the video doesn’t show up, check here)
 

 

No time to watch – here is the 1-2 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):

 

 

Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SConnect 2016 - Push on all Fronts from Holger Mueller

Want to read on? Here you go: Always tough to pick the takeaways – but here are my top ones:

New User Interface - The new user interface is certainly the most impressive advancement across all that SuccessFactors delivery plans. In the past there was often a lack of consistency across the SuccessFactors products, that the vendor is now addressing. The new UI, starting with the high frequency screens looks attractive and feedback from users was positive to very positive. Now we will watch what real world feedback is going to be and what the next set of improvements SuccessFactors will put in places.

The Centers have come and more are coming – Last year SuccessFactors introduced the center concept. A single place to look for functions or content, one year later we can state that the Center concept has been well accepted and more centers are on the way. The Release and Report Center are the ones that stood out in my view, as getting customers faster on a release and finding reporting information is always valuable. But there are many more and SuccessFactors is certainly up to something here.

Intelligent Services – Another capability that SuccessFactors debuted last year, Intelligent Service – is seeing good uptake by customers, some executives even shared better uptake than they expected. Personally I am not surprised, as automating more repetitive tasks is something not only HR professionals but especially business users have been asking for a long time. The debate if Intelligent Services is ‘just workflow’ keeps going on, but at the end it does not matter what it can be labelled as from a taxonomy standpoint, what matters is that functionality provides day to day value for SuccessFactors users. And that was a question last year – by now from adoption and customer conversations there is no question anymore.

Performance Management keeps getting continuous – When SAP unveiled its plans to come up with a different approach to Performance Management, there was general surprise. After all, SuccessFactors is the ‘800-pound gorilla’ in Performance Management and gorillas are not know for disrupting themselves. So kudos for that to SuccessFactors, on the flipside the direction of a more continuous form of Performance Management is not in the league with e.g. Columbus finding America. But HR professionals don’t want risky discovery, but a solution to the inaptitude of current Performance Management, and the new SuccessFactors offering is working well in these regards. Also good to see that SuccessFactors did not rest and is building more capabilities into Performance Management.

 

 

Analyst Tidbits

• Payroll – Amongst the numerous announcement was also a payroll related one, that Accenture, EPI-USE and NGA HR would take a SAP customers payroll, ‘lift & shift’ it to their environments and have it run / managed from there. An interesting solution for customers who want to use the SAP cloud offerings, but not go through the risk and cost to re-implement a payroll. Pretty sure this will help SAP / SuccessFactors in one or the other competitive situation.
   
• Bias & Diversity – Back at Sapphire Thomas Otter and me recorded a video on how software can help eliminate bias and increase diversity (see here) – and now SAP is getting ready to release first product capabilities, starting with a resume parser that flags words that may be offensive or limiting candidate response due to bias or targeting only a slice of the candidate population. In combination with the new Investigate (see below) capability there will be also the functionality to analyze the workforce in regards of bias and diversity.
   
• Marketplace - It’s the biennial of the marketplaces, and SuccessFactors does not stand back, launching the "SAP Training Marketplace" for its Learning product. A good start and an area where customers have requested more capabilities. Also a good place to show SAP wide benefits – as SuccessFactors leverage ‘sister division’ hybris capabilities. We will be curios on the uptake.
   
• Analytics – I have been critical of SAP’s analytics efforts overall and HCM in specific (see my definition of ‘true’ analytics here) – so it is good to see that things at SuccessFactors are changing for the better. Next to the new Report Center and the upcoming ‘Investigate’ capability, SuccessFactors has now a number of veritable predictive analytics projects ‘under the belt – which is a much better situation than a few quarters ago. We will have to see how yesterday’s SAP BW/HANA announcement may affect the reporting / analytics strategy for whole divisions like SuccessFactors (see our analysis here).

 

 

MyPOV

A good event for SuccessFactors that is growing on all fronts – customers, users, partners, prospects and most importantly product capability. Both SAP CEO Bill McDermott (with a first live appearance at the event) and Mike Ettling mentioned that the largest R&D contribution of SAP is in the HCM area. And with a focus on horizontal capabilities (e.g. User Interface and Reporting), the benefits are visible and delivered quickly. Also good to see that SuccessFactors has followed up on what they said they would deliver at the analyst summit earlier this year (Progress Report here). Moreover, it was good that this was not another ‘EmployeeCentral’ themed SuccessConnect – which for a long time has been the center of attention for good reasons, but almost to the point where traditional SuccessFactors clients on the older SuccessFactors products felt left out. A focus on overall HCM best practices has been good for the conference.

On the concern side SAP must – like all vendors with a history in the enterprise software market – address the question of technical debt. Some of the acquired older SuccessFactors products are turning double digit if not teenage years old, always a point to rethink and possible rebuild products. At the same time SAP as a company overall is on the quest of rebuilding the suite with S/4HANA and that has repercussions on all product lines – that at least need to be answered (see the BW/HANA announcement happening in parallel). But that is not only a problem for SAP / SuccessFactors – nonetheless an area to watch.

Overall a good event, good to see activity and progress on all fronts. We also learnt that SAP has an ambitious partner agenda – that should drive EmployeeCentral customers to 2000 by end of the year – from a current base of 1200 and change. We will be watching, but for now congrats to SuccessFactors to a good event, showing value to customers across the SAP HCM capabilities.

Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here).
 

2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016 (C) Holger Mueller - All Rights Reserved

Where I am Speaking This Fall! Come Say Hello!

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Role: Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on the IOT of Customer Experience and how the cloud is driving more flexible, agile, and robust customer service and customer experiences. In-app or in device customer service is the future. Coverage Areas: Next Generation Customer, Digital Marketing Transformation Bio: As a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, Inc, Petouhoff works with Fortune 100 and 500’s Senior Leadership teams to create strategic customer experience (marketing, sales and service) solutions which engage customers, build brands and grow businesses. Combining her experience as a former Forrester software analyst, PWC systems integrator and change management consultant, Petouhoff leads executive workshops to discuss to not only…...

Read more