Why aKite is different ?
Software solutions for the Retail market, even when delivered from the Internet, remain inside the dilemma between traditional Centralized and Departmental architectures, each with opposite problems. The Centralized architecture vulnerability is limited with redundant lines and/or back-up systems. The Departmental architecture gap from real time "Connected Retail" is reduced with frequent synchronization between different databases. Cost and complexity is increased in both cases.
On the contrary, aKite is based on a post-Internet vision built on Web services. Through these standards any HW and SW platform in the world can easily cooperate both inside and outside the company. Internet connectivity inevitable problems are solved by carefully splitting the Services between Embedded and Global.
Services Embedded on each POS ensure normal operations without limits on the number of customers, items, prices, promotions and disruption duration. Global Services, delivered by a highly advanced Cloud Computing platform, are those concerning the management and sharing of data between people, stores and even companies.
The term Cloud Computing is so fashionable that sometimes is used even for last century technologies such as Hosting and ASP. Some confusion during paradigm changes is normal and Cloud Computing is at the same time the final destination of traditional IT and the departure station of a completely new one. Luckily there are simple definitions, such as the one from NIST which does not leave much room for ambiguity.
A couple of important indicators of true Cloud Computing are:
• Multi-tenancy. Application software (aKite Retail Web Services) provides services to many different stores and chains, effectively sharing the same hardware and software resources.
• PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service). Some modern Cloud Computing offer a higher abstraction layer under which system problems are automatically handled.
Clearly it is easier to migrate an application to an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS, the Cloud lowest level closer to traditional Server based computing), rather than redesign it according to the new PaaS and Multi-tenancy paradigms. The aKite additional investment gives near-infinite scalability, easy integration, lowest delivery cost and especially a very high and guaranteed SLA (Service Level Agreement).
Cloud Computing
At the beginning of the twentieth century, factories gradually switched to electricity and furthermore from autonomous production to public distribution networks. Today a similar revolution is in progress for data processing services which can be used via Internet. Cloud Computing means that on-premises servers are replaced by a huge and evolving hardware/software platform that we do not have to care about, same as companies do not care about electrical power stations they are using.
Microsoft Windows Azure is the most up-to-date and safe platform for services supply over the Internet. Besides the very high Service Level Agreement (SLA) and the capacity to manage a really huge number of users, it ensures data protection even in case of catastrophic events. SQL Azure, one of the several components of Microsoft Cloud Computing, is indeed a database that replicates data in different geographical areas.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
The Cloud Computing quantum leap is based on “Platform as a Service”, a software layer that manages automatically new mega-datacenters.
The first Cloud generation, built on lower layer “Infrastructure as a Service”, is just the hosting and virtualization evolution. It can be used from traditional “server-centric” software application but to reach reliability and scalability required by modern SaaS, complex middleware for load balancing, fault recovery, etc. is required. This increase complexity and cost, without a radical problem solution.
Modern applications like aKite, developed in a “platform-centric” method, drastically solve all system problems and focus on service delivery with high scalability and service level (SLA). The capability to allocate resources depending on the hour of the day, day of the week and period of the year, reduce cost and environment impact, contributing to “Greentailing”.
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is the Cloud Computing foundation. Developed several years after the Internet explosion, allows the integrating of the most dissimilar and remote systems, inside and outside the company. This is made possible by decomposing business processes in basic components that can be easily reused and recombined.
Combination of these “Lego” building blocks produced by different companies with various technologies eases the creation and evolution of even large and complex systems, a crucial feature in a fast changing and interconnected world. It is well known that globalization impose an ever increasing internal specialization and external cooperation.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, factories gradually switched to electricity and furthermore from autonomous production to public distribution networks. Today a similar revolution is in progress for data processing services which can be used via Internet. Cloud Computing means that on-premises servers are replaced by a huge and evolving hardware/software platform that we do not have to care about, same as companies do not care about electrical power stations they are using.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
As for using electricity is not any more necessary to build your own plant, today even data processing can be used on demand as a fee based service. The Information Technology high capital investment and operating cost that only big chains could afford, are now available even to small stores and chains.
The last century shift from self produced electricity to power distribution networks, required the solution of complex technical problems and new visions. The word network, Internet synonymous, is not casual and it is easy to imagine the initial resistance to use energy produced by others.
In the same way also big companies will gradually switch to IT services delivered from Cloud Computing, not only for cost reduction, but also for the flexibility and simplicity of a fee based service. This new paradigm allows a better focus on efficiency, differentiation from competitors and collaboration with partners.
It should be emphasized that the new Software as a Service vision requires a delivery platform designed for this purpose.
Distributed or Centralised architecture?
So far it has always been necessary to choose whether to privilege POS reliability using distributed / offline solutions able to work also in case of external failure, or to encourage data sharing by accessing a single database, choosing the centralised / online architecture.
The recent Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) was developed several years after the Internet explosion, for integrating the most disparate and remote systems, inside and outside the company. Request and provisioning of business services take place through standard XML messages over the web. Services are “consumed” by software applications resident in the browser or directly in the desktop, as with Smart Clients. Thanks to the direct resources control, the last ones offer better interactivity and works also in case of temporary disconnections.
The aKite Smart Clients are delivered in Software as a Service (SaaS) mode, without manual installation and update - as it happens with browsers – finally combining the advantages of centralised and distributed systems.