Learn how to modernize your business applications and achieve high flexibility with the hybrid cloud approach

When you start to hear about delays, broken schedules, and unresponsive servers in your company, it’s time for a digital transformation.

And even if everybody talks about clouds, you may be cautious about moving your entire IT system into a cloud. We want to suggest a reliable compromise: a hybrid cloud approach.

What Is the Hybrid Cloud Approach?

The hybrid cloud approach allows you to use the synergy of on-premise and public cloud solutions. With a hybrid cloud, some workflows run on your private server or on-demand private cloud, whereas others run in a public cloud.

You can shift workloads between your private computing resources and cloud environments, distributing them efficiently.

The workflows, or rather the applications that incorporate them, talk to each other using different methods—mostly the APIs. The collaboration between applications located in separate environments is enabled through virtualization and containerization technologies. They wrap up each software and make it feel native on any platform.

Role of DevOps in This Approach

Although a hybrid cloud infrastructure comes with management software to steer the workflows, you should have a development operations (DevOps) engineer on your side. Cloud DevOps keeps track of all existing private cloud solutions and public cloud services, maintains them, and prevents conflicts and counterproductive resource utilization. This person or team) monitors the integrity of single applications and their performance.

In addition, DevOps coordinates deployments to ensure the completion of development life cycles: costly and risky projects with a lot of dependencies.

Why Move Toward the Hybrid Cloud Approach?

Public cloud services outscore their stationary private counterparts by many factors. Once your company begins growing, you suddenly need to speed up your workflows on short notice and without any cost explosion.

But you may still prefer to keep the most sensitive data on a server physically located in your office building. At the same time, you may implement applications that require quick response and scalability through cloud deployment.

If all above is the case, then the hybrid cloud approach may be the best option.

Modernizing Your Business Applications

Migration to cloud technology is a perfect chance to upgrade your existing applications. You can replace legacy ones running in your data center with native cloud applications. Many providers offer out-of-the-box solutions for enterprise resource planning, logistics, customer relationship management, and much more.

Apart from this, you can stick to custom-developed applications and let them breathe freely with the power of edge computing.

Three basic options are available for modernizing your applications:

• Lift and shift: move your application into the cloud without any interventions into it
• Partition: inside the same application, you move some of its workflows into the cloud
• Refactor: let your developers rewrite the source code completely to make the application cloud-native

The right way is always unique for your business.

How to Achieve Flexibility With the Hybrid Approach

As mentioned before, with a hybrid cloud approach, your workloads aren’t rigidly bound to either cloud or private servers. You can move them between environments, sparing resources and preventing system overloads and database crashes.

Flexibility means reliability. If you can orchestrate your capacities and deliver your customers what they need and when they need it, you’ll become a reliable business partner.

Hybrid cloud architecture won’t restrict you from performing secure, authorized deduplication: a procedure for tidying up your data storage. And it works with confidential data that can’t directly match with other methods.

You will find a lot of advice saying you should move to a cloud model. But what you really need is a precise understanding of cloud computing, your business needs, and the intersection between them.

Laminar has a proven track of successful cloud migrations and can demarcate for you a reasonable migration scope and support you by its implementation.

You’ve heard of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), but may not be familiar with XR. Learn about XR technology and how it’s used across industries.

You’ve heard of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), but you may not be familiar with XR. Let’s start by explaining what it is and then look at use cases that are being adopted.

What Is XR?

XR stands for extended reality. It’s a catch-all phrase that includes such technologies as augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and virtual reality (VR). This tech is being infused into software that can run on devices, including cell phones and tablets.  Three key areas are rapidly gaining momentum.

• Training applications
• Sales applications
• Collaboration applications

The market for XR to create immersive environments is growing quickly. It’s already a $12 billion market and expected to grow to $72 billion by 2024.

How Augmented Reality Works

Augmented reality is one of the most popular uses today. While virtual reality creates a digital simulation, AR works by adding digital content into real-world environments. It might use a live camera feed, for example, or augment what you’re seeing with additional information. It’s being used in remarkable ways with significant results.

XR and Training Apps

XR apps have revolutionized training experiences in many industries. Companies are using it to model real-life situations to visualize case-specific applications. XR apps allow workers to train safely in situations that otherwise might be high-risk, such as practicing surgical operations, working with high-voltage switching, training pilots, or rehearsing military operations.

It’s also being used by retailers such as Walmart, which claims VR training boosted retention in associates by 10 to 15%. They even used XR training apps to simulate the in-store chaos of Black Friday.

Trainers report that XR training apps help people focus better on the task at hand. Many enjoy the gamification aspects built into the simulations.

XR and Sales Apps

Customers today are looking for a more immersive experience. When they’re at a physical store, they can touch and hold a product. Online, not so much. They’re looking to replicate that in-store experience when shopping online. They want to see how products look in their home before buying them or how they might look with personal care or fashion products.

XR sales apps and cell phone XR apps can enhance the experience by letting them better visualize how products fit their lifestyle. It can enhance sales. As much as 47% of consumers said they’re more likely to engage with products using immersive technology, especially if it can provide personalized recommendations. As high as 61% said they’re more likely to buy after using XR tools.

XR and Collaboration Apps

XR collaboration apps allow multiple people to work on projects at the same time. Using XR collaboration tools, conference calls or video calls can become significantly more productive. As multiple people can visualize situations in AR or VR, participants can work together toward a common goal or find solutions.

Workers could annotate the live video of remote workers or interact with shared 3D virtual objects. Such uses have been shown to improve performance and reduce mental effort.

Technology Solutions to Enhance Your Business

XR is just one of the ways businesses are enhancing the training, collaboration, and sales experiences for their employees and customers.

If you’re looking for technology solutions to improve your business, contact the technology experts at Laminar today.

Laminar specializes in creating streamlined technology that drives solutions for your business. We integrate tech with your business goals to automate operations and execute your vision.