Today, traditional processes, enterprise systems, and a multitude of automation solutions tightly couple organizational service layers. To accelerate digital, it does not help to invest in more tools or platforms. Their benefits will taper out after a while. The solution is to abstract service delivery from underlying technologies and to provide a multiplier benefit on technology investments. Welcome to the world of abstraction in Enterprise Service Delivery
In the previous blog, we saw how the Digital Service Model brings about 4 major paradigm shifts in an Enterprise: in terms of Technology, Business Model, Service Delivery, and UI. Let us see more about the paradigm shift in technology for an Enterprise in the Digital world.
Organizations are in a buy-build-operate model when it comes to deploying any new tool or platform. Whether it is a new ITSM solution or an automation platform, the Enterprise goes through an elaborate procurement cycle, implementation, and configuration exercise.
The core issue for every Enterprise is that the tightly coupled architecture between service delivery and consumption reduces scalability of their digitization. A set of automation scripts can work well with a particular tool or platform within an Enterprise or Division, but will require extensive re-configuring (rework) for another division or another Enterprise.
In digital world, the success of technology adoption is based on
Driving speed : To design, build and deliver services rapidly
1. Highly reusable service architecture, so that services can be easily leveraged as needed on the go.
2. Flexibility to deliver any service across any tool seamlessly.
3. Rapidly allowing complex services to be built with minimal or zero coding skills
The answer to this question lies in the abstraction of service delivery. We can take inspiration from the Software development world and mobile OS world. Digital services in those respective areas can render agility, flexibility, portability, and standardization through abstraction. Enterprises can also leverage the same principles.
Dockers have revolutionized application development by democratizing software containers. Containers are an abstraction at the app layer that packages code and dependencies together
Multiple containers can run on the same machine and share the OS kernel with other containers, each running as isolated processes in user space.
Standard: Docker created the industry standard for containers so they could be portable anywhere
Speed: Docker enables faster delivery cycles. Docker containers make it easy to put new versions of software, with new business features, into production quickly — and to quickly roll back to a previous version if you need to. They also make it easier to implement strategies like blue/green deployments.
Enabling Microservices Architecture: Microservices architecture enables scaling, modifying, and servicing different parts of a line-of-business app separately by decomposing traditional “monolithic” applications into separate services. Separate teams can handle these services on separate timelines, aligning with the business needs. Agile development practices and containers are well-suited for this microservices architecture.
Docker and containers give developers more of the freedom they crave. While at the same time providing ways to build business apps that respond quickly to changing business conditions.
In a mobile world, Android serves as the perfect layer of abstraction, that can run any device (Motorola, Samsung, etc., ) and can host any app on top (Netflix, Spotify, Zomato, etc.,)
Here again, the abstraction layer of Android gives the benefit of portability for any app, extensibility in terms of integrating with any hardware below, and driving a common standard for industries to build more apps.
There is a pattern emerging here. Abstraction is clearly a winner where any digital service can be built and delivered rapidly across any underlying infrastructure or technology, providing flexiblity for users, leveraging reusability across organizations and minimizing the implementation efforts.
The Enterprise Service Delivery really needs an Abstraction layer. It is used to meet the demands of the Digital world. Enabling it to rapidly build any service component across any underlying tool or platform.
At the same time, it should provide the organization with the flexibility to build complex services on the go.
Here are the key tenets for Abstraction in an Enterprise
Componentization helps meet the requirement of Speed in Digital world. Services can be assembled rapidly using a ‘Lego block model’.
In this space, breaking down the services (e.g., Digital workplace services specific to Desktop or Cloud access or project start-ups, etc.) into easily buildable and manageable components would constitute componentization by multiple teams.
Componentizing involves breaking a complex ‘Monolith’ into smaller manageable service components, enabling easy automation and delivery through any underlying technology. As an example, people see ‘IT Managed services’ as a large Monolith today. Additionally, the complete chain starting from Procurement to service delivery and service management is a complex engine considering the entire value chain.
The Lego blocks style treats each component like an individual unit capable of delivering a task on its own, but they can also rapidly assemble them to form more complex services.
Any service is treated as a piece of code.
Just like how we are witnessing Infrastructure as Code (IoC), Virtualization throws open the possibility of Service as Code. Virtualization helps in decoupling service creation from service delivery.
Furthermore, Virtualization unleashes a huge potential for portability in organizations to consume any service across any technology. Services can be created in one place and delivered in a completely different place.
Service components are moved online and accessible to users over a service exchange. Digital is all about improving efficiency. What is needed by one organization is also needed by multiple organizations.
Cloudification significantly enhances the reusability across enterprises
The closest example to we see is an App store in the consumer world. Multiple users on multiple devices can use apps built once. The services exchange here is a lot more complex, as each service component can, in turn, chain with more services as needed.
Componentization, Virtualization, and Cloudification are all key to driving the Abstraction in Enterprise service delivery.
In summary, Abstraction helps in meeting some of the key needs of Digital Service delivery — agility, flexibility, portability, and standardization.
In the next blog, we will explore more about the Delivery model paradigm shift within an Enterprise.
