Question

Subject: Cloud computing

How does the cloud consumer interact with the appropriate systems to gain access to the required services. What different portals help the consumer to achieve this?

Answer 1

CRITERIAS TO SELECT APPROPRIATE SYSTEM TO GAIN ACCESS IN REQUIRED SERVICES ARE :-

1). Certification & Standards :-
Providers that comply with recognised standards and quality frameworks demonstrate an adherence to industry best practices and standards. While standards may not determine which service provider you choose, they can be very helpful in shortlisting potential suppliers.

2).Technologies & Service Roadmap :-

Technologies

Make sure the provider’s platform and preferred technologies align with your current environment and/or support your cloud objectives.

Does the provider’s cloud architectures, standards and services suit your workloads and management preferences? Assess how much re-coding or customisation you may have to do to make your workloads suitable for their platforms.

Many service providers offer comprehensive migration services and even offer assistance in the assessment and planning phases. Ensure you have a good understanding of the support on offer and map this against project tasks and decide who will do what. Often service providers have technical staff that can fill skills gaps in your migration teams.

Service roadmap

Ask about the provider’s roadmap of service development – How do they plan to continue to innovate and grow over time? Does their roadmap fit your needs in the long term?

Important factors to consider are commitments to specific technologies or vendors, and how interoperability is supported. Also can they demonstrate similar deployments to the ones you are planning?

3).Reliability & Performance

There are several methods you can use to measure the reliability of a service provider.

First, check the performance of the service provider against their SLAs for the last 6-12 months. Some service providers publish this information, but others should supply it if asked.

Don’t expect perfection: downtime is inevitable and every cloud provider will experience it at some point. It’s how the provider deals with that downtime that counts. Ensure the monitoring and reporting tools on offer are sufficient and can integrate into your overall management and reporting systems.

Ensure your chosen provider has established, documented and proven processes for dealing with planned and unplanned downtime. They should have plans and processes in place documenting how they plan to communicate with customers during times of disruption including timeliness, prioritisation and severity level assessment of issues.

DIFFERENT PORTALS TO HELP CONSUMER FOR CLOUD COMPUTING :-

1). Bosch Smart Home:-

Bosch Smart Home's online customer portal handles returns, processes warranties, provides self-service chat functionality and hosts installation videos. As another touchpoint for customers, Bosch ensured that their Online-Shop would be seamless and consistent with their other channels. Liferay's flexibility and integration capabilities helped accomplish that and continue to be key drivers for delivering best possible customer experience

2). Airbus Helicopters

More than 3,000 civil and military operators rely on Airbus Helicopters’ customer portal to keep their aircraft operational. Therefore, the company needed to redesign the portal in order to turn it into a modern customer engagement tool that could be accessed anytime through any device. Airbus Group chose Liferay for its rich features and customizable elements. Keycopter, the new portal, was rolled out to over 24,000 users across 3,000 companies. The operators can view and download up-to-date technical documents, manage claims and warranties, purchase spare parts and track online invoices all through a single platform. Modernizing this online service helped to enhance customer experiences and simplify their operations.

3).Infosys

Infosys Finacle helps traditional and emerging financial institutions drive digital transformation and service over a billion consumers. As they continued to grow, there was a need for more efficient and satisfactory support. Infosys launched the Finacle Support Portal. Customers could now monitor the status of a ticket, see real-time in-progress patches and access the Finacle PhraseBook, a glossary of banking terms and FAQs. Within 6 months of its launch, the Finacle Support Portal has been adopted by over 160 leading banks and over 50 of Infosys Finacle partners, and the portal continues to build on both scale and the quality of support it provides.

4).MSA

The MSA provides social security for the agricultural population of France. In order to satisfy their members, the MSA needed to add autonomy and fluidity into their procedures. Using Liferay, they redesigned their customer spaces to have a streamlined interface with simplified navigation. Members can file their online declaration, track their reimbursements or pay their contributions. The new space garnered wide support with more than 70% of members using the spaces on a regular basis in comparison to 30% two years prior.