The term enterprise class is not well defined. Asan adjective, enterprise-class soundsreally good. It conjures up the notion that whatever is being written about ordiscussed is of substance, and as such, of great value. When it comes to new enterprise-classtraining and development solution technologies, however, chief learningofficers (CLOs) cannot rely on marketing buzz; they need to know the differencebetween common application web-based eLearning and training services and next-generationenterprise microservice technologies.
Everyorganization is based on its unique proprietary knowledge. There is, of course,easily obtainable mandatory compliance and general “how-to” training related tomost every operational discipline, but this is not enough. Today’s competitivemarkets demand a deeper level of organization-centric training that produces greaterlearning traction, faster. Achieving extra learning traction means moreeffective blended learning, eLearning, eMentoring, “get-up-to-speed”onboarding, learning analytics, intelligent reporting, and other solutions suchas digitized knowledge management.
As organizationsexpand locally, regionally, and internationally, still more powerful technologyis demanded to serve the needs of the organization. Enter enterprise-classknowledge solution technologies.
Volkswagens and Ferraris
Volkswagensare great for getting around town. They are economical, fun, and typically notdriven more than 100 miles per hour. Ferraris are not Volkswagens. Ferraris arerace cars. They are designed to exceed 200 miles per hour on the autobahn orrace track. To achieve this level of performance, Ferrari engines and bodydesigns are crafted to meet the highest performance standards. Each high-tolerancepart must complement every other high-tolerance part of a Ferrari engine andits subsystems. As such, Ferraris are considered design and engineering worksof art.
Likewise, enterprise-classcomputer systems are expected to rise to the very highest standards ofperformance and durability. Just as a race car driver’s life is at stake at 200-plusmiles per hour, an organization’s operation is also at risk based upon the quality of the technical infrastructure underlyingits operation.
Enterprise-classsystems represent the backbone of most organizations and, once installed, theyare intended to function in that capacity for years and decades. The problemis, just as race car technology must advance to stay competitive, so must organizationaltechnologies. Microservice technologies help solve both the technical advancementproblem and the evolving learning problems faced by every organization.
Enterprise-class infrastructures
There arethree broad categories of computing systems that contribute to anorganization’s technical infrastructure: monolithic; SOA (service-oriented architecture);and microservice architecture technologies. Monolithic systems, such as mainframeERP (enterprise resource planning) and single-purpose departmental computers,rely upon conventional programming standards that integrate functional layersof software code to perform single-purpose requirements such as accounting, sales,inventory, or credit card processing. Monolithic systems provided the backboneof the Internet we know today, launched in the early 1990s when HTTP protocolsand graphics-oriented browsers were first introduced.
In the early2000s, a new breed of software architecture came into prominence, called service-oriented architectures. SOAs aredesigned to integrate discrete, fully developed and maintained software componentswith host application software to perform desired functions and tasks. Thesefunctions might include the software code for the menu bars commonly seen onoperating systems and applications, or perhaps a calendar or a calculator function.SOA functions can be accessed remotely if desired. The advantage of SOAs isthat they eliminate much of the time and cost associated with the programmingand testing of common, non-proprietary functions.
Now, unlikeSOA architectures that are designed to integrate pre-programmed function and/ortask components, microservice architectures are designed to process discretetask elements that make up a complete task, one that in turn makes up a largercomputer function. For this reason, programming microservice code requires thatthe programmer think at a micro level while also keeping the larger function,and overall program design, in mind. A single microservice function could becomposed of hundreds of discrete tasks that work together to perform thefunction. The advantage of microservice programming is that it can dramaticallyincrease the speed of program development and improve program flexibility,interoperability, performance, bug detection, and correction. Companies such asAmazon, Netflix, Uber, Airbnb, eBay, and others rely upon microservice architecturesto deliver their services.
Enterprise knowledge solutions
The trendtoward cloud-based applications is in full force. There is good reason forthis. SaaS (Software as a Service), especially those that are developed with microservicearchitectures, make the buying decision less risky for CLOs. Here’s why:
- Flexibility—Developers can code functions, tasks, and entire systems thatmore accurately align technology with business goals and objectives. Example: theability to interface multiple concurrently running applications such as MySQL(storage), ElasticSearch (indexing/search), MongoDB (processing), Neo4j (graphDB), and proprietary databases such as MarkLogic, Oracle, and SQL.
- Increased agility—Makes it easier, faster, and safer todevelop and test new features and functions, lowering development and changereconfiguration costs normally associated with monolithic and SOA architectures.
- Scaling—Enables scaling of individual functions (services) to solve“bottleneck” problems that reduce system efficiency and performance. Scalingissues are common with monolithic architectures, requiring, in many cases, thatlarge blocks of an application be reconfigured to solve bottleneck problems.
- Interoperability—Supports seamless systems interoperabilitywith other applications for bi-directional transfers of relevant organizationalknowledge to support descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analyticsfor near and real-time requirements.
- Multi-layering—Supports replication (cloning) of services tosupport multi-country, multi-language requirements, while also providingwide-scale interoperability.
Conventionalmonolithic and SOA web-based technologies do not offer this level offunctionality or performance. If your intention is to purchase a new learningmanagement system that will serve your requirements for years and decades out,then a high-end microservice technology may be a better choice for the longrun.
Pricing enterprise-class services
Unlikeweb-based and low-end SOA or regular SaaS services, high-end microservice SaaS,especially those that deliver true organizational knowledge representations,cost more because they deliver more. You can expect to pay a standard licensingfee of $20,000 to $50,000-plus, a fixed monthly rate maintenance and upgradefee, and a monthly cost-per-user fee—typically presented as an annual per-usercost. In return, you get a fully managed service that allows you to reduceprogramming staff and long waiting periods for “priority” adds, moves, andchanges.
As anexample, there are over 42,000 companies in the US with 500-plus employees; 50state governments with 25,000 to 200,000 or more employees; and a nationalgovernment with hundreds of thousands of employees. Given this, you can expectthe cost of a Ferrari-class service to be $50,000 and up for the license fee; $2,500per month for maintenance and upgrades; and $10 a month or $120 a year per user,depending on the actual number of employees using the service. Of course, thesenumbers are negotiable depending on the vendor and services provided. Tieredpricing scenarios are also offered. In these cases, the cost per user mightstart at $19.95 per month, then drop down to $6 per month or $72 per year peruser.
Customprogramming costs represent an additional cost for interfacing disparatesystems or adding new proprietary functions and features. Many modern services,however, have replaced the need for deep programming because they allow non-programmingprofessionals to develop their own programs using common language. Programmingcosts are usually covered under a separate agreement.
Enterprise-class SaaS service qualifying standards
- Architecture—Does the service operate with a singledatabase backend that needs to be reconfigured every time new features and functionsare added to the service? This requirement can be costly.
- Interoperability—Does the software interoperate with othersoftware applications? This requirement is about leveraging already-owned applicationsand services, and especially near and real-time updates for knowledgemanagement and eLearning.
- Scalability—Will the service scale with minimal performanceloss to support hundreds, thousands, even millions of end users?
- Customization—Can the software be customized to accommodatethe needs of multiple departments, projects, or R&D units? Does customizationrequire programming, or can non-programmers fulfill the requirements?
- Performance—Does the software architecture support concurrentuse of different databases (relational, NoSQL, Graph, etc.) to optimize datastorage, indexing, processing, and retrieval?
- Search—Does the software architecture support data and documents, downthrough the text within documents?
- Security—Does the software meet or exceed current security standards toprotect it from outside threats and data leaks?
- Analytics and reporting—Does the service provide standard algebraicfunctions (+, -, /, x)? Does it perform advanced analytics such as correlations?How extensive are reporting capabilities based on these functions?
- User access and permissions—Does the software provide “role-based” useraccess and permissions to fulfill “need-to-know” or “need-to-access”requirements? Are other forms of permissions available?
- Services—Does the service currently meet the deep-knowledge service requirementsof your organization, and will it support future growth and development?
