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The Future of the Database: YugabyteDB, Java, Java Philippines
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The Future of the Database: YugabyteDB
The Future of the Database: YugabyteDB 768 487 Exist Software Labs

The Future of the Database

The journey to application modernization brought about by the cloud-native renaissance continues, and the benefits to be had are truly being enjoyed by the enterprises that embrace the path. Speed, scalability, resiliency, and agility may seem to just be industry buzzwords, but in reality, they translate to better application deployment, performance, and availability, which further translate to what really matters: happy customers.

This has given way to the concomitant need for databases to adapt to this need for speed, scalability, resiliency, and agility. The way traditional databases have implemented a single-node access to the database cluster via the master node has proven untenable in a commercial environment wherein the need to scale users, not just locally, but across the regional and geographical divide, has become dire and ubiquitous.

This is where the gap is filled by YugabyteDB.

 

What is YugabyteDB?

What is YugabyteDB?

YugabyteDB is a transactional, distributed SQL database that was designed primarily to possess the virtues of the cloud-native philosophy. Its creators wanted a chiefly OLTP database that was fast, easy to add more nodes to, able to tolerate node failures, upgradable without incurring any downtime, and deployable in all form factors (public/private cloud, VMs, and on-prem).

Being a distributed SQL database, it has automatic distribution of data across nodes in a cluster, automatic replication of data in a strongly consistent manner, support for distributed query execution so clients do not need to know about the underlying distribution of data, and support for distributed ACID transactions.

It is a multi-API database that exposes the following APIs (more will be added in the future): 

  • YSQL – an ANSI SQL, fully-relational API that is completely compatible with PostgreSQL 11.2
  • YCQL – a semi-relational SQL API that is based on the Cassandra Query Language

It is a Consistent and Partition Tolerant (CP) database in that in the event of a network partition within the database cluster wherein one of the nodes cannot communicate with the other nodes and determine majority membership, data consistency over availability is prioritized by the system and this node will not be able to accept writes, whereas the nodes that are still part of the majority will remain unaffected.

It is completely open source, released under the Apache 2.0 license.

 

What are the key benefits of YugabyteDB?

The following are some of the benefits that are immediately enjoyed “out-of-the-box”:

  • No single point of failure given all nodes are equal
  • Distributed transactions across any number of nodes
  • Scale write throughput linearly across multiple nodes and/or geographic regions.
  • Low-latency reads and high-throughput writes.
  • Strongly consistent, zero data loss writes.
  • Cloud-neutral deployments with a Kubernetes-native database.
  • Automatic failover and native repair.
  • 100% Apache 2.0 open source even for enterprise features.

In other words, you get a cloud-native, transactional, distributed SQL database system that allows you to read and write on every node in the cluster (with ACID assurance), distribute your application load across many nodes in many regions and geographies, read and write data fast, deploy anywhere, and be highly available—all in open source!

 

Use Cases

YugabyteDB is perfect for:Use Cases of YugabyteDB

Just this morning, social media personality, James Deakin, posted on his FB wall about a particular bank whose “app feels like it’s running on windows 95” (his own words). He ended up closing his account due to the overall poor customer experience brought on by the subpar performance of this bank’s client-facing, internet applications, along with other concerns.

YugabyteDB is perfect for the client-facing, Internet, transactional application.

Want to know more about the Yuggernaut of Distributed SQL? Contact us.

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Pandemic Highlights Need for EMR, Information Systems Beyond Hospital and Clinic Walls, Java, Java Developer Philippines
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The 2020 Pandemic effectively Highlights Need for EMR, Information Systems Beyond the Hospital and Clinic’s Walls
The 2020 Pandemic effectively Highlights Need for EMR, Information Systems Beyond the Hospital and Clinic’s Walls 768 487 Exist Software Labs

Despite the uptake of practices using EMRs, the country’s struggle to capture COVID-related data and the presence of health information systems that are not interoperable exposed the need for EMR, hospital, and clinic systems that contribute to and empower the greater health sector.

Read on to see how the pandemic highlights the need for EMRs and Information Systems beyond hospital and clinic walls.

It is nearly impossible to create or build healthcare capacity during a pandemic.  Hospitals everywhere struggle with staffing and bed resources to keep up with Covid surges while preventing infections.  The lack of clear political strategy and guidance seems to leave health providers fending for themselves.

Yet, it is these types of situations that also enlighten and ultimately force a reckoning for businesses.  In healthcare, it is not just about finding a means to stay afloat.  It is a matter of ensuring the survival of staff and the populace.  It is about how to improve and extend patient services while contributing to the greater need of containing the pandemic.

 

Pandemic Highlights the Need for EMR and Clinic Systems. See how it can help.

If it wasn’t as clear before, it has become imperative that any operating business will need to invest in IT and digital solutions.  It is about finding systems that answer core business requirements while also being equipped to support functionalities yet to be identified.  For hospitals and clinics, it is not enough that systems and applications exist only for internal consumption.  Systems need to enable them to participate and share health data (in a secure manner) to reach patients.  They need to contribute information to guide policies for the greater population.

For medical practices, the shift and need for EMR have grown rapidly in the last few years.  This is apparent in larger clinical practices offering a variety of medical and diagnostic services across a network of branches.  Ease of coordination, as well as seamless transactions, give these clinics an advantage.  They offer a more well-rounded patient experience that mirrors that of a tertiary hospital but at a more affordable cost.

Why does the need for EMR constantly arise? EMRs allow users to coordinate care across various specialties.  The system provides the entire clinic and its team of doctors with the needed information about the patient at every turn. With available patient data, the practice is likely to adapt toward providing more evidence-based care.

Outpatient clinics need to step up to provide help to hospitals. Clinics can provide triage as a first line of care for patients before going directly to hospitals.

As vaccination programs roll out, clinics across the country can be viable centers given their experience providing immunizations.  At this time, multi-specialty and diagnostic clinics can be a safe haven for patients needing medical help while avoiding the high risk of infection in hospitals.

Such a larger role requires that clinic management systems cannot just be about the need for an EMR.  Clinic systems will need to be mini-hospital information systems (HIS) except without the support for admission and its supporting modules.

Like hospital systems, the clinic system orchestrates a team of doctors, nurses, and other users across different sections organized by medical specialty, different laboratory, or even outpatient surgical care. The Pandemic Highlights the support needed for an integrated online patient portal and telemedicine. Imagine a doctor providing teleconsultation without the need to open another application for accessing and updating the patient’s electronic medical records!

These functionalities are critical to ensuring that medical services will remain operational while reducing physical contact.  With a portal, the patients are provided a tool by which they can update their records and provide feedback on their medical outcomes.

 

Pandemic Highlights Importance of Breaking Silos and Transmission of Covid-related Data

Maintaining a single source of patient information across multiple branches is just as important.  Firstly, the patient will have more options not limited by location for in-person services such as laboratory and diagnostic tests. This ensures that doctors and other care professionals view updated and complete patient records regardless of clinic branch which opens potential for further interoperability. With consolidated patient records inside clinic systems, clinics have in their possession, valuable data.  Data that can yield patient insights and provide information on future services and investment as well.

In the fight against Covid, using information from paper records seems almost anecdotal at best.  For any viable health program to succeed in this pandemic, data needs to guide the plans.  Surviving the pandemic needs the entire health sector — both public and private, to work together.  Hospitals and clinics will need to pay attention to the needs of population health for Covid data as well. Using the right hospital information and clinic systems is vital for transmitting and collecting health information and statistics.  This is important in creating a holistic health plan for cities, provinces, and ultimately an entire country.

The Covid situation is like being part of an ongoing global research study.  It is both tragic, and one that hopefully with available data, will strengthen and lift healthcare standards everywhere.

In the Philippines, the pandemic highlights the need for IT systems used by hospitals and clinics need to comply with the required standards set forth by the Department of Health (DOH) as well as Philhealth.  Systems with these certifications not only give health facilities the license to legally operate but show a commitment to contribute to improving healthcare beyond its four walls. 

The pandemic highlights the need to take advantage of information systems, care institutions give themselves and their patients a fighting chance to survive and continue to be relevant players in the healthcare business as well.

Enabling Connected Healthcare


Technological innovation has enabled a new model of care delivery where the patient is at the center of the healthcare network. The pandemic highlights the need for advanced and innovative healthcare technology.
 
Exist’s healthcare IT systems address the management of patient information to connect users and different care providers to help achieve ease of care, drive cost and process efficiencies, and ultimately, generate better patient outcomes.

Check out our other Digital Healthcare insights here!

Check Out Medcurial

Check out our healthcare product, MEDCURIAL. See how it can help our nation improve its response to the ongoing global pandemic.

MEDCURIAL

 

Digital Banking Models to Lead Transformation in 2021 and Beyond 1 of 3, Java, Java Philippines
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Digital Banking Models to Lead Transformation in 2021 and Beyond 1 of 3
Digital Banking Models to Lead Transformation in 2021 and Beyond 1 of 3 768 487 Exist Software Labs

In a world that keeps closing into even more modernized digital banking models, global initiatives that are being put into place to slash the reliance on physical touchpoints only make perfect sense.

Not only that private sectors are immensely investing in going online, but there has also been some legal support for the modern banking cause.

In the Philippines alone, House Representative Joey Salceda of the 2nd district of Albay has been working on the Virtual Banking Act’s legislation. One of the aims of this act is to increase foreign participation. Simultaneously, it intends on learning more about financial technology from global resources.

Additionally, the Central Bank issued a regulation last July. It proposes to make digital banks a new classification distinct from universal, commercial, thrift, rural, cooperative, and Islamic banks.

Modernizing personal banking and fintech opportunities are also eminent as the tech-savvy, young populace is dominating the workforce.

This age group is also currently considered as the biggest earners. Doubtlessly, they would desire nothing less than convenient and easy ways to accomplish day-to-day tasks, say, managing their finances.

Government, private sectors, and the plurality of the population – when these three vital stakeholders are walking the same path, progress is always in sight.

Such strong signals that digital banks, and even neo-banking, are becoming more and more accepted in the country with each passing day.

 

Digital Banking Models

Digital banking models refer to various approaches used by financial institutions to deliver banking services through digital channels. These models leverage technology and automation to offer a wide range of financial services to customers in a more convenient, efficient, and cost-effective manner.

Digital banking models provide customers with greater convenience, speed, and accessibility while enabling banks to operate more efficiently and effectively.

Neo-banking is a term for modern-day digital banking that mainly capitalizes on the rampancy of the internet. Its operations and offerings are heavily online-based. Most of the time, neo-banks do not have physical branches.

With the increasing support for this concept, the country can expect a huge wave of new players in the industry. This poses a further threat to traditional banks that are still taking much time in improving their digital playing cards. Therefore, traditional banks investing in solutions that can take these threats head-on should become more mainstream.

However, every investment comes with risks for both enterprises and the target users. From these risks sprout doubt. With this at hand, how should banking and fintech providers mitigate the half-hearts of the market? At the same time, how will they ensure that the technologies they will be offering are what the market needs, wants, and deserves?

If we are to aggregate all the floating idealisms on addressing this, we will boil down to a few specific models that will fit the bill in the face of growing and changing market demands and needs.

As banking solutions developers, we believe that digital banking technologies should lay their building blocks on human-centric, cloud-ready, and threat-elusive models. Here is why:

People-centric Model

Adding value to a person’s day-to-day life through technology is the ultimate goal of any digital transformation effort. It is the ultimate goal that enterprises should aspire to achieve.

Such entails that the human factor should be the utmost consideration in forging ahead. That does not only include the customer end but as well as the employees.

Is the solution fit for their needs? Will the solution require fewer efforts from them, thus making their tasks smoother to accomplish? Will it give them the relief that they did not know they needed?

Cloud-Ready Model

Modern times and younger markets call for an up-to-date approach. Implementing cloud technology into the banking arena improves data generation and processing.

Cloud-ready solutions are also known to be more scalable and flexible, allowing developers to add software improvements effortlessly.

The Central Bank is in full support of deploying banking processes in the cloud even before the pandemic. Nevertheless, the health crisis still boosted the normalization of the cloud-ready model and is now being utilized by several banks in the country. Still, the use of cloud computing in banking is yet to be fully explored.

Threat-Elusive Model

One of the most critical decision breakers for prospect users is whether banking online is secure or not. Security threats over the internet are pretty rampant, so where they are coming from is understandable.

Howbeit, there are tools and ways to address these concerns, assuring the users that performing their banking matters online can be a safe option.

Adapting these Digital Banking Models is not impossible anymore. One merely needs the right direction and resources for it to take shape. Better the soonest, as the first to market always has an advantage.

Digital banking models are different from traditional banking models in several ways. Some of the key differences are:

  1. Digital-only: Digital banking models are entirely online-based, and they do not have physical branches. Customers can access their accounts and complete transactions through mobile apps, websites, or other digital channels. Traditional banks, on the other hand, have a physical presence in the form of branches and ATMs.
  2. Cost structure: Digital banking models have lower operational costs compared to traditional banks, as they do not have to maintain physical branches or hire as many staff. This enables them to offer lower fees and better interest rates to their customers.
  3. Customer experience: Digital banks prioritize customer experience and convenience. They offer features such as 24/7 customer support, instant money transfers, and seamless account opening processes. In contrast, traditional banks may have limited customer support hours and require customers to visit a branch to open an account or complete certain transactions.
  4. Technology-driven: Digital banks rely heavily on technology to deliver their services. They use advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning to provide personalized recommendations and insights to their customers. Traditional banks may also use technology, but their systems are often less integrated and less advanced.
  5. Regulatory environment: Digital banks are subject to the same regulations as traditional banks, but they may face additional regulatory challenges as they operate entirely online. They may need to comply with additional data privacy and cybersecurity regulations, for example.

Overall, digital banking models are designed to offer a more efficient, cost-effective, and convenient banking experience for customers.

Transform into an omnichannel platform

Exist Digital Banking and Fintech have already streamlined the solutions-building process by creating a foundational banking app that can easily integrate with core banking systems using a standard set of integration connectors to equip banks with capabilities to shift and compete in the digital economy rapidly.

But we will cut you short this time. Stay tuned to our next blogs as we are about to explore each model more rigorously.

Download our FREE datasheet!

Exist fosters a future-ready digital banking technology that equips its banking and fintech partners with the agility to adapt to ever-changing market demands.

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Digital Banking Transformation: Why go Digital? Java, Java Philippines
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Digital Banking Transformation 2021: Get ready to go Digital
Digital Banking Transformation 2021: Get ready to go Digital 800 507 Exist Software Labs

Going full-on digital in the banking sector has been the talk for years. And if there’s one thing that the recent pandemic called attention to, it’s that pushing for digital banking transformation is the way to go.

So, why is it the right choice for banks to go digital?

Harnessing today’s technologies to advance the way we bank can work beyond expectations. Not to mention, it has the power to propel the state of digital banking to new heights and reinvent the flow of the world’s finance.

Now is the best time to realize your organization’s digital banking initiatives. Stepping up and gearing towards the future of banking technology are redefining the expectations of both executives and customers.

The shift of customers to digital banking

While we can agree that consumers are kings, digital banking makes managing finances simpler and accessible at any time, anywhere.

Visiting a physical branch to make deposits, apply for loans, transfer money, and pay bills is now an option. These services (and more) are becoming readily available through digital devices.

In the Philippines, ATM transactions declined by 25% and value by 30% since the onset of ECQ. At the same time, money transactions using e-payment services spiked.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas also reported that around 4.1 million digital accounts were created among banks and e-wallet platforms. These numbers represent that Filipinos are changing their preferences from traditional to mostly digital due to social distancing protocols.

Looking forward, 3 in 5 Filipino bankers will switch to a more digital experience in banking.

While 4 in 5 will open new accounts with competitor banks that will dissolve their relationship with their first bank. (Fintech and Digital Banking 2025 report) With this at stake, it’s an instinct for banks to get right into the competition and face it head-on.

Attracting and retaining customers has always been a challenge, but now, it’s a step further. And a step towards finding the right technologies for the right services is a step in the right direction.

Common challenges faced by banks

With this in mind, there must be challenges that banks encounter that hinder the digitalization of their banking system, right? As a matter of fact, yes.

Based on a report, 86% of banking executives say that their legacy banking system is too complicated and the main reason that hinders them from enabling digital interactions with their customers.

In the same study, even though 86% of the respondents agree that digital is a high priority, only 19% have a clear digital strategy. (Boston Consulting Group’s Global Corporate Banking report, 2018)

We can infer from this survey that digital transformation has always been an integral part of most business initiatives.

But, steering the ship and managing the scales to maximize this considerable investment is a struggle. In other words, banks prioritize the move to go full-on digital, but they’re moving at different paces.

What to do?

Just like with any business transformation, a strategy is first and foremost. Above all, a top-down, integrated approach starting from the C-suite with the CEO steering the ship and involving every aspect of the organization is the best course of action.

The Boston Consulting Group recommends four priorities in making this happen:

1

Reinvent the consumer journey

There are critical points in the consumer journey that matters most, and banking providers should take notice. This course of action will vary across different customer segments and will require continuous improvement and streamlining processes. The ultimate goal is to digitize the experience from start to finish.

2

Leverage the power of data

Advanced data analytics will empower banks to understand their current and potential customers better. Through data mining, or finding patterns and correlations through data, banks can use their customers’ data to predict outcomes based on their behavior. This will improve prospecting and prioritizing leads that suit best with services offered.

3

Redefine the operating model

A digital experience for speed and convenience, and a human experience for advice and resolving issues. Customers want the best of both worlds. Finding the right digital operating model for your business is up to you, whether it’s an added service, a new line of business, or a digital native.

4

Build a digital-driven organization

Prioritizing digital will require a distinctly articulated strategy, funding, talent, working agile, and company culture to take risks willingly. It’s not easy to achieve but can heap benefits in the long run.

To sum up, if traditional banks want to stay afloat, they should start and take advantage of new banking technologies.

It’s also an excellent tactic to streamline the banking experience, choose the right operating strategy, and embed the digital mindset within the organization.

ROI in digital banking

But of course, going digital is not an easy feat. It will involve a lot of resources and cost you money, time, and valuable resources. Before you proceed with the investment, what’s in store for you?

We know that return on investment is essential in any business transformation initiative. Knowing these can speed up executive buy-in and identify the right technologies for your bank.

There are four top reasons why executives should invest in digital banking:

1

Get more customers

Banks and financial technology companies with a digital presence attract and retain more customers. The freedom of choice for consumers to opt for a digital and human experience empowers them in handling their finances.

2

Targeted offerings

Use customer data to easily convert clients with just a tap of a button on their device. You can do more with target marketing, upselling, cross-selling, and even establish long-lasting relationships with customers.

3

No need to open a new branch

Even with more customers, it is not necessary to open new physical banks, which will save you a ton.

4

Go paperless

From sending e-statements to digital onboarding and marketing offers, you can save a lot in going digital.

Digital is the future

Keep in mind that consumers are online, and so should banks. Omnipresence is a superpower the best banks have. Allowing your customers the freedom of choice to access their finances, anywhere, at any time, will increase your market share in attracting and retaining clients.

Moreover, going digital can bridge the gap between banks and their market even better. It is a race toward digital transformation, and staying behind is not a safe choice. Digital is the future, and it’s fast approaching. If you’re looking for a solutions partner to work with you, we’re right here.

Exist has streamlined the solutions-building process that will complement your existing banking system. From mobile and internet banking to onboarding and origination, we can even tailor-fit our solution to your unique needs.

That and more on our next blog on why Exist is your innovation partner of choice.

Take your next step with a banking innovation that the future needs. ‘Till our next!

Check out our video!

Watch our Digital Banking Advocate, Jem, as she shares in her vlog how Filipino customers are shifting their banking preferences. What are the common challenges faced by banks? What to do? And in what ways can you get your return on investment?

Watch all videos

Download our FREE datasheet!

Exist fosters a future-ready digital banking technology that equips its banking and fintech partners with the agility to adapt to ever-changing market demands.

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Investing in Healthcare IT, Supporting Care Workers, Java, Java Philippines
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Investing in Healthcare IT Systems in 2021 , A tremendous support for Care Workers
Investing in Healthcare IT Systems in 2021 , A tremendous support for Care Workers 768 487 Exist Software Labs

Healthcare IT Systems: Supporting Care Workers


2021 is for the health and care workers who are possibly among the rare few not threatened with job displacement. This is despite the increased use of technology.  On the contrary, the partnership between them has helped push online care providers into the mainstream. Yet, this is just the beginning.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared

2021 as the International Year of Health and Care Workers (YHCW)

and rightfully so because more than any other group, they are at the frontlines risking their own health caring for those seemingly increasing numbers of patients with Covid.

According to WHO, “the YHCW is an opportunity to draw attention to the need for greater investments in health and care workforce readiness, education and learning to manage the pandemic and its consequences and to roll out the COVID-19 vaccine.

Beyond COVID-19, investments are also needed in health and care workers’ ability to deliver primary health care, manage noncommunicable diseases, and provide mental health services, maternal and child health care, long-term care, and palliative care.”

Healthcare IT: Technology More Than Plays Its Part

Further, WHO also states, “Investments in education, continuing professional development, well-being, and occupational safety in all of these areas are important preconditions for retaining and attracting health and care professionals. Without making health and care work a desirable and supported career path. Countries will also struggle to attract newcomers, including in rural areas. Moreover, it will also be challenging to progress towards universal health coverage and stronger, more resilient health systems.”

While Exist Healthcare and Medcurial have committed to developing the systems to promote better patient outcomes and better care delivery, YHCW is also a timely reminder of the need for better-designed systems that support positive user experiences enabling happy and productive care providers.

Healthcare IT systems have time and again mitigated the risks of spreading infection for patients and users alike. This is due to the increasing use of online technology. Things are not likely to go back to normal soon. Along with this, the use of telemedicine and remote care portals and protocols will likely continue and spur further improvements.

Unsung heroes for years, the pandemic now gave care workers the attention they deserve. By equipping them with the tools, healthcare IT will always provide them with needed help. This will let them discharge their medical duties the best they can safely while at the front lines—not only for their patients but for their families waiting for them at home.

Check Out Medcurial

Check out our healthcare product, MEDCURIAL. See how it helped some of the biggest hospitals in the country provide better patient outcomes.

MEDCURIAL
Befriending Your Data in 2021, Java, Java Philippines
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Befriending Your eye-opening Data in 2021
Befriending Your eye-opening Data in 2021 768 487 Exist Software Labs

It’s the new year and everybody is still living in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. We all need a friend in times of trouble and this is no different in the case of business organizations.

This year, 2021, the friend that your company needs more than ever, especially in these trying times, is data.

Given the disruption that this virus caused in the preceding year, enterprises need to start (if they haven’t already) befriending their own internal data, and perhaps external data as well if they are to at least stay viable and at most grow.

The following are some insights from respected data management leaders on how to make friends with your data this year:

  • Eran Vanounou, CEO at Varada

    “Data warehouses are not going to disappear. Data warehouses will continue to be an important legacy technology that organizations will use for mission-critical business applications well into the future.

    With the transition to the cloud, data warehouses got a fresh new look and offer some modern attractive capabilities including self-service and serverless.

    With the rise of the cloud, data lakes are the new kid on the block. Data lakes are becoming a commodity, a legacy technology in their own right. Their rapid emergence from the innovation stage means two things going forward.

    First, organizations will demand simpler, easier to manage, and more cost-effective means of extracting usable business intelligence from their data lakes, using as many data sources as possible.

    Second, those same organizations will want the above benefit to be delivered via tools that do not lock them into proprietary data management platforms.

    In short, 2021 will begin to see the rapid introduction and evolution of tools that allow users to keep their data lakes in one place and under their control while driving performance up and cost down.”

  • Paige Roberts, Open-Source Relations Manager at Vertica

    “Distributed analytical databases and affordable scalable storage are merging into a single new thing called either a unified analytics warehouse or a data lake house depending on who you’re talking to.

    Data lake vendors are scrambling to add ACID capabilities, improve SQL performance, add governance, resource management, security, lineage, and all the things that data warehouse vendors have been perfecting for the last three or four decades.

    During the ten years, while data lake software has been coalescing, analytical databases have seen their benefits and added them to their existing stacks: unlimited scale, support for widely varied data types, fast ingestion of streaming data, schema-on-read, and machine learning capabilities.

    Just like a lot of things used to claim to be cloudy before they really were, some vendors will claim to be a unified analytics warehouse when they’ve just jammed the two architectures together into a complicated mess, but everyone is racing to make it happen for real.

    I think the data warehouse vendors have an unbeatable head start because building a solid, dependable analytical database like Vertica can take ten years or more alone.

    The data lake vendors have only been around about ten years, and are scrambling to play catch-up.”

  • Raj Verma, CEO at SingleStore

    “One single SQL query for all data workloads

    The way forward is based not only on automation but also on how quickly and widely you can make your analytics accessible and shareable.

    Analytics gives you a clear direction of what your next steps should be to keep customers and employees happy, and even save lives. Managing your data is no longer a luxury, but a necessity–and determines how successful you or your company will be.

    If you can remove the complexity or cost of managing data, you’ll be very effective.

    Ultimately, the winner of the space will take the complexity and cost out of data management, and workloads will be unified so you can write one single SQL query to manage and access all workloads across multiple data residencies.”

  • Prat Moghe, CEO at Cazena

    “Expect more enterprises to declare the battle between data lakes and data warehouses over in 2021 – and focus on driving outcomes and modernizing.

    Data warehouses can continue to support reporting and business intelligence, while modern cloud data lakes support all analytics, AI and ML enablement far more flexibly, scalably, and inexpensively than ever – so enterprises can go transform quickly.

    Cloud migrations and related cloud data lake implementations will get demonstrably faster and easier as DIY approaches are replaced by turnkey SaaS platforms.

    Such solutions will slash production cloud data lake deployment times from months to minutes while controlling costs and providing the continuous operations, security and compliance, AI and ML enablement, and self-service access required for modern analytics initiatives.

    That means that migrations that used to take 9-12+ months are complete in a fraction of the time.”

  • Adi Paz, CEO at GigaSpaces Technologies

    “Co-locating analytics and operational data results in faster data processing to accelerate actionable insights and response times for time-sensitive applications such as dynamic pricing, hyper-personalized recommendations, real-time fraud and risk analysis, business process optimization, predictive maintenance, and more.

    To successfully deploy analytics and ML in production, a more efficient Data Architecture will be deployed, combining OLTP (CRM, ERP, billing, etc.) with OLAP (data lake, data warehouse, BI, etc.) systems with the ability to build the feature vector more quickly, and with more data for accurate, timely results.”

To summarize the various points made by these industry pundits:

1

SQL-driven data warehouses are here to stay and will continue to be the data analytics platform of choice for enterprises in the current year.

2

Data management platforms that integrate well with existing data lakes will dominate as opposed to platforms that focus on one or the other.

3

Data management platforms that have built-in AI/ML functionalities will dominate as well, as this eliminates the cost and complexity of separate AI/ML analytics platforms.

4

Data management platforms that are cloud-ready will also have an edge over those that are not.

Is there a data management platform that possesses all these qualities and has a proven track record in Fortune 500 companies?

Yes, there is. It’s called Greenplum. Read about it here.

Hospital Information System. Java. Java Philippines.
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Buy and Build Hospital Information Systems Dilemma Revisited in 2020
Buy and Build Hospital Information Systems Dilemma Revisited in 2020 768 487 Exist Software Labs

What do hospitals have to deal with in choosing to buy or build systems??

Delivering care now generally considers hospital information systems, applications, and software. Despite misgivings about cost as the previous article has pointed out, what first was a tool to ensure operational and financial efficiency, has grown far more valuable and one that continues to become essential in achieving whatever doctor, clinic, or hospital has originally set out to do – provide the right medical care based on data or evidence.

Custom (build) or Off-the-shelf Systems (buy)

The eternal dilemma facing CIOs is whether to build a system from scratch or mold an off-the-shelf application to the needs of the institution. Most decisions are a hybrid mix, but many hospitals lean too far in the emotional direction. When hard data is available, making an emotional decision is not a good business practice! 

TechRepublic says it best:

The major factor that significantly reduces the custom solutions’ ROI is the lack of available personnel with proper skill sets. That is also true in many cases. Such ultimately causes the endeavor to fail as well. It takes many skills to design and deploy a business solution that is both scalable and extensible. 

Unless one of your business areas is product development, there is an extremely high probability that your operations and maintenance technology resources do not include all of the skill sets necessary for a successful solution.

Even worse, the team may not fully understand the problem domain, and may not discover unknown requirements. 

While cost between custom solutions and commercial built products have now been significantly reduced, if you are a clinic or hospital and IT resources are not available within the organization, then the option to look for available solutions in the market makes the most sense. 

Here are key considerations for picking an off-the-shelf solution vs building a custom one which is also essentially a choice between product and vendor support:

A product vendor who is responsible for adapting the product to technological advancements that are aligned with your overall strategy.

They should be capable of providing immediate and long-term support to your organization.

The product can meet most of the core business requirements.

It should also be able to accommodate unsupported core business requirements via enhancements or additional modules.

Reality-check

The allure of both custom and off-the-shelf software is that all requirements can be satisfied, but that is a delusion. 

Requirements are not just about features but about other system characteristics and technologies. While features reflect the immediate need for hospitals or clinics, long-term benefits impact ROI on either option. Clarifying business goals and finding the right partners that will help the organization over the course of 3-5 business years are the keys to achieving these long-term benefits.

Learn more and read a previous article where Philippine healthcare IT leaders share their thoughts about hospital information systems on this link.

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Digital Banking. Java. Java Philippines.
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Digital Banking in 2020: Is Philippines Ready?
Digital Banking in 2020: Is Philippines Ready? 768 487 Exist Software Labs

Digital Banking is not news to the banking and finance industry in the Philippines. However, the industry has been in wait-and-see mode when it comes to adopting the concept. Furthermore, Decision-makers in the field are indecisive about taking the risk of diverting a larger portion of their investments to this.

Innovators, nonetheless, see the market’s promise. Ere the outrage of COVID19, actors intend to push this innovation and establish a position in the Philippine market.

In an interview with the CIMB Bank Philippines CEO Vijay Manoharan last January 2019, he took a solid stance on whether or not the country is ready for digital banking.

“This market is poised for digital transformation. It is great because the population is young. We got smartphone adoption and mobile banking penetration that are encouraging and growing rapidly. The consumers are ready. Consumers are looking for a digital banking solution. Coupled with a great regulatory framework, that will encourage digital adoption in banking. 

All these key pillars or indicators led us to believe that it is the right time to do something like this in the Philippines.”

In addition to this, the country also has a significantly large populace of unbanked individuals.

Congruent to what Mr. Manoharan said, the Philippine market is at its fruition to surf the tides of digital banking technology. The number of users has grown to millions in only a year.

How does the country forward digital banking locally?

Currently, the Philippines is on its way to becoming the next country to issue digital banking licenses. This regulation is part of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s three-year digital payments transformation roadmap, which seeks to promote financial inclusion.

BSP has initially set a goal to increase the share of electronic payments to 20 percent of total payment transactions in the country by 2020. According to BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno, the quarantine measure implemented throughout the Philippines boosted the realization of this goal.

There certainly has been a sharp decline in physical transactions. Subsequently, the surge in electronic banking activities changed the initial goal to about 50 percent of total transactions by 2023.

The tremendous market potential, combined with the local regulations, makes the path towards digital transformation in banking a lot smoother.

Going digital is always a user’s option. 

The ascendance of digital banking into the limelight nowadays became an avenue for redefining the industry’s focus. Therefore, whether the country is ready for this or not is no longer a hanging question.

Digital banking’s viability can withstand and sustain the post-pandemic financial ecosystem. For banking and finance tycoons, it is a race. Tapping the market with this technology’s interoperability is the goal.

Exist fosters a future-ready digital banking technology that equips its banking and fintech partners with the agility to adapt to ever-changing market demands.

Java. Java Philippines. Hospital Information System.
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Philippine’s Hospital Information System Adoption in 2020: Which Level Are You In?
Philippine’s Hospital Information System Adoption in 2020: Which Level Are You In? 768 487 Exist Software Labs

This blog is the first in a series where we examine the state of HIS use among Philippine hospitals.

Hospital Information Systems in healthcare have evolved tremendously over the years. The use of some level of information management has become virtually indispensable among care providers, facilities, and health systems.  Around the world, the current pandemic has placed a spotlight on healthcare. It also set a level of scrutiny on how care is safely and efficiently provided. In this era, it generally involves the use of tools and IT systems.

WHO states that what constitutes its importance is that, “such information systems serve multiple users and a wide array of purposes that can be summarized as the generation of information to enable decision-makers at all levels of the health system to identify problems and needs, make evidence-based decisions on health policy and allocate scarce resources optimally.”

Health information systems are called upon to enable tracking along the continuum of inputs to the health system, from processes, outputs, as well as outcomes and impact. 

Yet, owing to prohibitive costs and competing priorities, few developing countries have hospital and care facilities that have sufficiently strong and effective health information systems to meet all these diverse and important information needs.

Like a growing enterprise, achieving a level of care system requires carefully thought out strategies. These involve starting with organizational objectives before even thinking about core features.  It also means assessing and building up support capabilities while considering the tools that will help lead the team towards its goal.

Leading healthcare analytics company Health Catalyst, has brilliantly laid out a historical table that helps hospitals figure out which stage they are in their healthcare systems.

  • 1960s

    The main healthcare drivers in this era were Medicare and Medicaid. The IT drivers were expensive mainframes and storage. Because computers and storage were so large and expensive, hospitals typically shared a mainframe. Shared hospital accounting systems were the principal applications emerging in this environment.

  • 1970s

    One of the main healthcare drivers in this era was the need to do a better job communicating between departments (ADT, order communications, and results review) and the need for discrete departmental systems (e.g., clinical lab, pharmacy). The reduction of hardware size allowed the installation of computers in a single department without environmental controls. As a result, departmental systems proliferated. Unfortunately, these transactional systems, embedded in individual departments, were typically islands unto themselves.

  • 1980s

    Healthcare drivers were heavily tied to DRGs and reimbursement. For the first time, hospitals needed to pull significant information from both clinical and financial systems to be reimbursed. At the same time, personal computers, widespread, non-traditional software applications, and networking solutions entered the market. As a result, hospitals began integrating applications so financial and clinical systems could interact in a limited way.

  • 1990s

    In this decade, competition and consolidation drove healthcare, along with the need to integrate hospitals, providers, and managed care. From an IT perspective, hospitals now had access to broad, distributed computing systems and robust networks. Therefore, we created an integrated delivery network (IDN)-like integration, including the impetus to integrate data and reporting.

  • 2000s

    The main healthcare drivers were increased integration and the beginnings of outcomes-based reimbursement. We now had enough technology and bedside clinical applications installed to make a serious run at commercial, real-time clinical decision support.

The information above gives us a concrete way to frame where most Philippine hospitals are in their hospital information system journey — which more or less cuts and jumps through the different periods while also dependent on the level of and type of hospital organization (primary, secondary, tertiary and teaching) to which they belong.

It is also good to point out that several factors mainly influence part of the adoption of these systems in local settings (approximating the following in order of importance):

  • Government policies

  • Cost

  • Organizational objectives

  • Availability of innovation

For the most part, Philippine hospitals were mostly using systems primarily supporting ADT and other operational requirements. While leading hospitals have blazed a trail of their own by benchmarking their systems globally, most had systems that were mostly siloed or islands among themselves.  Using paper, these hospitals barely even touch and encode clinical data. Such practice leaves doctors and care professionals to depend solely on their own competencies, sorting through paper medical records, and delivering successful outcomes against the growing complexities of providing care.

But lately, things have been accelerating towards the adoption of better systems that require substantial clinical data because of government mandates related to DOH EMR compliance and Philhealth financial reimbursements.  

Modern requirements subtly push Philippine hospitals to make use of electronic medical records for reporting statistics. Some of these include the renewal of licenses as well as providing correct clinical data to support claims reimbursements.  The outcome is multi-fold as this forces Philippine healthcare to shift from paper to electronic. It also promotes increased use of data in providing care and upgrade to systems that make better use of IT. Implementing these technologies will reduce manual errors and manage care complexities. Thus, leading to more team collaboration.

So, can we say that the use of better hospital systems in the country is making progress?  Tell us what you think!

In another article, we will discuss the available options for hospitals that aspire to step up in their healthcare proposition. As well as differentiate themselves against the competition using IT innovation.

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IoT and Data Integration. Java Philippines. Java.
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Unlocking the Power of IoT and Data Integration to Boost Transformation in the Energy Industry Webinar Highlights (2020)
Unlocking the Power of IoT and Data Integration to Boost Transformation in the Energy Industry Webinar Highlights (2020) 768 487 Exist Software Labs

Speaker: Mr. Chris Silerio | VP for Operations

Exist is a software development company that has been in the industry for almost 20 years. Five years ago, we started collaborating and developing systems with companies in the power sector, specifically, generators, distributors, electric cooperatives, and others. We are also one of the technology partners of PEMC and IEMOP. For almost five years, we’ve developed IEMOP’s Central Registration and Settlement System (CRSS) as well as their Trading Operations Central Management Systems. We’ve also recently developed PEMC’s Philippine Renewable Energy Market System (PREMS) through the contract of UNDP and DOE.

We are not an IoT solutions company, but whatever we’re discussing here is based on our vast experience in developing various enterprise system projects in different verticals. That was also made possible by the thorough RnDs and TOCs conducted by our technical team. We are also currently collaborating and partnering with hardware and other software companies that offer IoT devices and solutions.

Agenda:

    1. What is an IoT platform
    2. Discuss the necessary components or services IoT
    3. What are the various ways of implementing an IoT platform
    4. How it could coexist and integrate into a data integration (Data Warehouse/Big Data) platform
    5. How to jump-start your IoT integration journey

What is IoT?

It is the internet connectivity of small devices such as sensors, actuators, smart appliances so they could share and gather information to and from each other.

Some of you might be asking, what’s the big fuss? We already have the internet, and most of you in the power sector already implemented SCADA and PLC before. So how is it any different?

IoT addresses a lot of shortcomings of SCADA and PLC. That is a new level of connectivity between devices. The main difference is when any components within the environment are interconnected, it can act on its own without any human intervention. With all the information it has, it provides rich insight into its entire surrounding environment and instantaneously reacts efficiently by making automatic changes and actions. It can also improve performance and even predict failures, just like Tesla cars or autonomous machines that are in manufacturing plants.

To fully appreciate all the benefits of the internet of things in the energy sector, all of its major components, such as generators, grids, distributors, and consumers, should go smart soon as smart grids cannot function without ‘smart’ consumers.

What is an IoT Platform?

An IoT platform is an integrated service that connects devices and generates its ecosystem online. In the simplest terms, an IoT platform is a group of systems and services where you could operate your entire IoT landscape.

IoT Platform Types, Services, and Offerings

End-to-end IoT Platform

Some companies offer end-to-end solutions. They sell everything – hardware, actual sensors, services, software, and connectivity, plus the device management tools. It is a one-stop-shop, but this tends to be a lot more expensive. You could end up buying features or components that might not apply to your current needs, and yet, you are paying for the entire cost. One of the downsides is that it could become a case of classic single vendor lock-in that most companies steer away from.

Connectivity Management Platform

It is an inherent part of the IoT technology stack. It is the one responsible for connecting and converting data to and from devices and IoT core platforms, regardless if it is on-premise or on-cloud. The primary use case for this type of platform is when you partner with a mobile network to handle communications for security purposes. It means that the data would have to travel through a cellular network rather than flow directly to the internet. But of course, it also introduces new challenges and complexities. So you need to establish your business requirements first.

IoT Edge Platform

We see here the edge devices and the communication gateway. In this type of platform, they provide actual devices and software or tools to manage and configure the devices remotely. With this type, you don’t necessarily need to connect to the cloud as these edge devices are, in a way, functioning already as mini computing and storage machines.

IoT Cloud Platform

It is the most common computing strategy. In this setup, all information from IoT devices could be uploaded to the cloud and a centralized repository. It then runs insights with the aid of full-blown machine learning and artificial intelligence tools. Such simplifies the management of device configurations, managing, and monitoring. Whatever you deploy into the cloud, you could also have on-premise. Your cloud could also push data to the on-premise platform or vice versa.

Edge Computing

An essential part when deciding what type of platform you will choose is whether you would go with edge computing, cloud computing, or hybrid.

Edge computing is bringing the processing at the edge of the local network, not the office LAN, but the network within the autonomous component, for example, a smart car and smart parking garage. These edge devices could send and receive from various IoT devices and communicate directly with other edge devices. 

A case in point is the autonomous Tesla cars that can park itself in an IoT enabled parking garage. The cars going in and out of the garage did not wait for details from the cloud. Instead, they talk to each other directly. Such solved a crucial problem associated with the centralization of data in the cloud. In this model, all processing is distributed, and decision making is down locally by bringing cloud computing capabilities and localizing the data to these devices. It can reduce latency, process data faster, and provide instantaneous insights, as compared to sending everything first to the cloud for analysis.

How Can It Do That?

All the IoT cloud components have been, in a way, miniaturized, streamlined, and deployed in those small edge devices.

Common Components of Edge Devices

Complex Event Processing (CEP) could take data from different IoT devices and act accordingly based on the established patterns. But more often than not, actual CEP models are done on an edge core network. Then, it’s just pushed to the edge devices.

Edge computing devices now support Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence (ML & AI) locally, but there is always the option of sending the data to the enterprise data warehouse for furth ML & AI processing.

It has the ability to deploy containerized applications as well, either the software package from your solution provider or your own developed applications.

These devices are capable of storage and data management too. These devices now have storage large enough to store all data from different devices, especially in the event of network failure. It is capable of holding data temporarily until the connection gets restored.

When do we consider EDGE over CLOUD?

When your requirements are mission-critical, like, when a machine needs to stop outright to prevent an accident or defective product, sending your data first to the cloud for analysis is not an optimal solution.

Another scenario is when these components are remote, and there is limited or no connectivity to your centralized data center.

Edge computing is still developing, so it has a lot of downsides. Given that the data is localized, security measures might not be as tight as the one securing the cloud security-based systems. It is still a potential privacy and security concern in the edge devices given that the data is stored and already consolidated. That information could also contain sensitive data. Curious people can easily access the device, have the data leaked, or used maliciously.

High availability and failover. Usually, these devices are geographically dispersed. If one edge device goes down, even if you have installed clustered edge devices in one autonomous component, it is still hard to monitor and replace if you have a lot in your IoT plinth.

Scalability. As the number of IoT devices grows, it will be hard to maintain and monitor. Even if you did conduct positive planning, it could only handle so much.

So, choosing between edge and cloud computing depends on your business requirements as well as your business objectives.

Data Integration Platform

The data integration platform is another significant type of platform. Whenever you see an IoT platform presentation, there is always a storage component. It is a combination of several frameworks and tools that will handle the following 

    • Streaming of extracted data from various sources 
    • Routing of data either to your data warehouse or directly to the data consumers’ application
    • Ingestion of data to your data warehouse and OLTP, 
    • Doing a fast filling of data from the database. 

All of these are components of a full-blown enterprise data warehouse or Big Data. What we would like to note is that when you are planning to start your IoT platform, you should first have a data warehouse or Big Data strategy in place.

The goal is to align your IoT storage roadmap with your data warehouse or Big Data roadmap, and not the other way around. Remember that a data warehouse or Big Data setup is also a costly investment and should be treated as a separate project. Having an aligned IoT and data integration strategy could save you a lot of money by maximizing the use of your entire infrastructure.

There are a lot of components that IoT and data warehouse share – streaming, ingestion, and routing. All of these can have its cluster but can be utilized by both your IoT and data platform. With this setup, you can save cost in your infrastructure and reduce the skillset that you need from your IT team.

IoT and Big Data share the same challenges – volume/size of the data coming in, velocity/speed, variety, and veracity/accuracy. When deciding on your IoT storage platform, you have to make sure that it could address all of these challenges.

Here are the few options that you could opt to adopt for your IoT and data warehouse platform.

So, when you have to decide as to which computing strategy or data platform to employ, you need to consider a lot of factors. Don’t just jump on the bandwagon.

Speaker: Mr. Steven Siahetiong | Exist Technical Architect

IoT Components

  1.     “Things“ pertain to sensors, actuators, or any device capable of sending data to the cloud.
  2.     For these devices to send data, it will need to use networking and messaging protocols for the data to be transferred to its destination. Most use wireless access for network connectivity. During the past few years, there have been substantial developments in wireless connectivity protocols. Some of the examples are Bluetooth, Low Power WAN, ZigBee, 6LoWpan, and Thread.
    • Bluetooth is a global 2.4 GHz personal area network for short-range communication. 
    • LPWAN is a type of wireless telecommunication wide area network designed to allow long-range communications at a low bit rate. There are several competing standards and vendors in the LPWAN space. The most prominent of which include Laura and SigFox.
    • ZigBee is a 2.4 GHz mesh local area network lan protocol. It was originally designed for building automation and control, so things like wireless thermostats and lighting systems often use ZigBee.
    • 6LoWpan uses a lightweight IP based communication to travel over lower data rate networks. It is an open IoT network protocol like ZigBee and is primarily used for home and building automation.
    • Thread is an open standard built on IPV6 and 6LoWpan protocols. You could think of it as Google’s version of ZigBee.

For the messaging layer, the most popular are HTTP, MQTT, and CoAP.

    • The CoAp protocol is a client server-based protocol that allows pockets to be shared between client nodes, which are commanded by the CoAP server.
    • The MQTT protocol is communication-based, which is based on the publish/subscribe methodology in which clients receive information through a broker only to the subscribed topic.
  1.     The IoT solution needs to have a platform. An IoT platform combines several IoT functions in one. It can collect and receive your data, convert data between protocols, and store and analyze data. They are available as cloud-based and standalone platforms and are available for many companies, both large and small.

The cloud will have an important role to play in IoT as it will enable companies to create networks, store data, and automate processes without having to build the infrastructure themselves. Such will let IoT services to be developed much quicker and at a lower cost than using traditional in-house systems and services.

As seen on the graph, HTTP involves the largest bandwidth and latency than any other protocols, while CoAP has the least bandwidth and latency.

MQTT offers the highest level of quality of services, with the least interoperability among the four. On the other hand, HTTP was designed for the greatest interoperability on the web and did not include reliability as a core feature.

There are many IoT platforms in the market, and the functionality of these platforms varies enormously. Although all IoT platforms will have dashboards to display data, some platforms are essentially dashboards and are only capable of displaying data from devices. You will often find the terms dashboard and platform used interchangeably.

An IoT dashboard can be considered as a basic IoT platform. A dashboard can usually display data and control devices. However, an IoT platform can usually collect data from various sources, store data, control devices, display data, run tests, deploy device updates, and manage device inventory.

Concepts

Events, insights, and actions are functional concepts that exist across the devices, platforms, and applications of an IoT solution. To further explain, consider an application that monitors the cooling system, temperature for food storage, and calls emergency maintenance services if the temperature becomes dangerously low or high.

The following processes occur in this example:

    • The devices send temperature samples from the primary cooling system to the IoT gateway via the device to cloud events every 30 seconds.
    • These events can generate insights. The IoT platform can evaluate events for any immediate contextual insights, such as temperatures at malfunctioning levels.
    • The generated insights can trigger actions. If the temperature is at a malfunctioning level, the platform can send a command to the backup system to start while the maintenance is en route to the location.

Events represent the device-to-cloud communication in an IoT solution, and maybe notifications, acknowledgments, or telemetry data.

Insights are interpretations of events. It may derive from events directly as contextual insights or transform or stored event data by application event processing for real-time or aggregated insights.

Actions are activities undertaken either programmatically or manually as a device, service, or analog actions.

IoT Customer Scenarios

How can you design an IoT solution to satisfy customer requirements?

    • Manufacturing safety systems must respond to operational data with ultra-low latency and control.
    • Mission-critical systems such as remote mining equipment, connected vessels, or offshore drilling need to analyze and react to data even with limited connectivity to the cloud.
    • The volume of data produced by jet engines or connected cars can be so large that data must be filtered or pre-processed before sending it to the cloud.
    • Regulatory compliance may require some data to be locally anonymized or aggregated before being sent to the cloud.

IoT Edge

IoT devices can connect to the IoT platform directly or through IoT Edge gateways that implement intelligent capabilities. With an IoT edge, you can analyze censored data in near real-time and issue commands when you detect anomalies to stop a machine or trigger alerts. Your streaming logic runs independently off the network connectivity, and you can choose what to send to the cloud for processing or storage. You can also filter or aggregate the data that needs to be sent to the cloud.

The benefits of using edge gateway, particularly in an IoT application, is that moving data processing functions from the cloud to the edge helps ensure accuracy and reliability. Transmitting data to and from the cloud takes time. Even milliseconds are too long for many mission-critical decisions and processes that occur in industrial operations. In the time it takes to send data to and get a response to the cloud, the data could simply become obsolete, resulting in missed opportunities for action, damaged components/products, or risks to the safety of the equipment/personnel.

Edge devices can also send data or commands directly to other devices for immediate action. Edge computing via edge gateway also makes it possible to keep sensitive data on-site to ensure its security. Some devices or systems generate so much data that the bandwidth and resources needed for the cloud to handle this data are too costly. The edge gateway can determine which data can be sent to the cloud and transmit it in the most efficient and usable form.

Industrial Edge LORA 1 Gateway

    • Extremely flexible and powerful
    • Allows to run Lola 1 application and network server locally to setup on-premise private network
    • Aimed to help the transition from legacy to connected automation with its ability of interfacing existing devices.

Types of Edge Gateways

IoT Edge devices can act as communication enablers, local device control systems, and data processors for the IoT cloud platform. IoT Edge devices can run cloud workflows on-premises and can communicate with devices even in offline scenarios.

Cloud gateways can do protocol and identity translation to and from the IoT cloud platform and can execute additional logic on behalf of devices.

In a transparent gateway pattern, the gateway simply passes communications between the devices and the IoT cloud platform.

A protocol translation gateway is also known as an opaque gateway, in contrast with the transparent gateway pattern. In this pattern, devices that do not support MQTT, AMQP, or HTTP can use a gateway device to send data to IoT cloud platforms on their behalf. All information looks like it is coming from one device, the gateway. 

Exist, as a technological solution provider, designed a generic IoT and data integration reference architecture for our customers, especially for the power industry.

The Data Integration layer handles the ingestion of the various data sources. It supports all types of connectors.

IoT Gateway acts as a gateway to connect your devices and accepts data streams using MQTT, CoAP, and HTTP messaging protocols. Data can be ingested as a batch or a real-time stream. With batch processing, data is collected in batches and then fed into an analytics system. A batch is a group of data points collected within a given period. Unlike stream processing, it does not immediately feed data into an analytics system, so results are not available in real-time.

With stream processing, data is fed into an analytics system piece by piece as soon as it is generated. Instead of processing a batch of data overtime, stream processing feeds each data point or a micro-batch directly into an analytics platform. This allows teams to produce key insights in near real-time.

Streaming platforms allow data transformation persistence and allow interactive queries on the streaming application. Kafka is the most popular choice among streaming platforms. 

ETL is the extract, transform, and load process for the data. While the ELT is the extract, load, and transform process. In ETL, data moves from the data source to staging and into the data warehouse. ELT lets the data destination to the transformation, eliminating the need for data staging.

Optionally, you can add a dataflow tool such as NiFi to provide a web UI, which design or control your data pipeline in a graphical representation. NiFi can deal with a great variety of data sources and formats.

For Stream Analytics, the popular choice is Apache Spark Streaming. It is a scalable and fault-tolerant stream processing system that allows data engineers and data scientists to process real-time data from various sources.

Data can be processed using complex algorithms, expressed with high-level functions. Finally, processed data can be pushed out to file systems, databases, and live dashboards. You can apply Spark’s machine learning and graph processing algorithms to data streams.

For the ETL jobs, you can apply data quality steps before loading it to a data warehouse. While for ELT, data is simply dumped into the data lake, and transformations happen on an as-needed basis, and only the data that needs to be analyzed at that time are transformed.

Hot path

    • analyzes data in near-real-time, as it arrives
    • events must be processed with very low latency
    • typically implemented using a stream processing engine
    • the output may trigger an alert or be written in a structured format that can be queried using analytical tools

Warm path

    • holds data that must be available immediately from the device for reporting and visualization

Cold path

    • performs batch processing at longer intervals (hourly or daily)
    • typically operates over large volumes of data, but the results don’t need to be as timely as the hot path.
    • captured and then fed into a batch process

Machine Learning allows predictive algorithms to be executed over historical telemetry data, enabling scenarios such as predictive maintenance. It requires training by telling a machine learning model what it’s trying to predict, similar to how a human child learns.

Speaker: Mr. Jejomar Dimayuga | Exist Technical Architect

Industrial IoT Stack

Sensors

    • Actual things that are located in your physical environment
    • Smart meters or actuators

Edge Devices

    • Can act as the concentrator/aggregator for all of your devices
    • Allow different protocols depending on the support of your devices

Gateway

    • Connectivity to your edge devices

Cloud (or on-premise infrastructure)

    • Where your applications run
    • Offers high availability and high scalability solutions

Insights

    • Where analytics are produced that can be based on historical events, failures, rules, or condition that can communicate back to your device
    • Where algorithms are performed after ingesting and storing the data

Consumption

    • How your data is consumed
    • How can it be displayed via the web, iOS, or Android devices

Security and encryption across the components are must-have. It is a vital requirement for all systems, especially in the IoT solution for energy. Security components such as SSL or HTTPS, LDAP Integration, Single Sign-On, Access Token are already in place.

We accommodate Access Token so we can ensure that your devices are secured in connection to your edge devices and IoT gateway.

We also offer a Single Sign-On authentication to your existing authentication features via the Oauth2.0 protocol.

We can also integrate your authentication via LDAP. We can connect your authentication and your road-based access control to an active directory in your organization if you have one.

To secure your communication layer, we can incorporate SSL or HTTPS with certificates from the latest update of the TLS version.

Another important aspect of any system nowadays is scalability and high availability. In this solution, we can incorporate Docker containerization via the Kubernetes platform. In this way, we can deploy your application or your IoT gateway into multiple replicas to ensure that it is highly available. We can:

    • Reach the maximum daily quota of your required messages
    • Reach the quota of connected devices 
    • Increase the ingestion throughput
    • Increase the processing throughput
    • Set up a DR environment in place to ensure that your operations will be continuous

All of these are in place already so that we can ensure that you will be able to perform your analytics and your business needs. On top of that, we can also integrate into your existing systems, may it be your billing system, billing, or offer system, CRSS, or else.

Speaker: Mr. Chris Silerio | VP for Operations

Things to Consider on Choosing an IoT Platform

    • The capability of your team
    • Geographic coverage
    • Timeline and budget
    • Your IoT and EDW roadmap
    • Your business billing model
    • Scalability of the platform
    • Method of connectivity
    • Integration flexibility
    • Device management
    • Cloud VS. on-premise

Developing your platform in-house is fine as long as you are not pressed by time. Otherwise, it might be better to start with a simple platform and develop on top of it.

Q&A

Q1: With the vast array of open standards for all the layers of IoT, is there a considered safe or conservative stop that anyone can use as a basis or a starter that is easy to pivot towards specific solutions as requirements get clearer? 

A: As shown on the Industrial IoT Stack diagram, we could have the base layer of the devices, followed by the edge devices if you want to go with edge computing. After that, we can set up an IoT gateway on cloud infrastructure.

It also depends on the network or protocol that the sensors, actuators, or your device are supporting. What matters most is that your platform can connect with these various open standards and not limit your entire solution. If there is a new protocol that comes in, your platform should be flexible enough to support these open standards.

 

Q2: What are actuators?

A: Actuators are mostly used in factories. These are devices that are connected to types of machinery. It typically sends telemetry data, like temperature, weight, the roughness of a substance.

 

Q3: What is the experience of Exist in developing IoT systems for energy efficiency applications?

A: We have a couple of projects on the integration of IoT devices, and it is still growing. Our forte is software development integration. But our experiences with these projects gave us enough exposure to the entire ecosystem.

 

Q4: Have you done any IoT applications for use in the Philippine market?

A: We are developing some right now for companies who are just starting their IoT projects. These companies are doing it in phases. We are currently in the first phase. (Company names cannot be disclosed yet.)

 

Q5: Given the poor internet connection in the Philippines, would IoT applications that HTTP use be a challenge?

A: High likely, cloud computing would be a challenge because it will always depend on internet connectivity. In scenarios that it is in remote areas, it would be better to go with edge computing provisioning. That is one of the advantages of an edge over cloud computing. 

Aside from internet connectivity, some providers also offer alternative communication layers, such as cellular networks.

 

Q6: Do you provide a complete solution, like sourcing sensors or edge devices, depending on the requirements?

A: No. There are only a few companies here in the Philippines that offer end-to-end solutions. We are not a hardware company. We are agnostic of software and hardware. We do more on the development of all these layers/components from the IoT devices up to the data integration. But we are partnered with companies that we may utilize to provide an almost end-to-end solution.

 

Q7: For an organization that has mostly in SCADA plus TLC equipment, what would a migration plan look like when moving to a more modern platform that allows a more open choice of technology stack?

A: IoT is not intended to replace SCADA and TLC. It is a different level/layer. Information from SCADA and TLC may be integrated into your IoT platform. We do not have to migrate as we can support SCADA and TLC.

 

Q8: With regards to data storage, would you still recommend Hadoop, or are there better alternatives?

A: We recommend that you go with the storage that can handle multiple parallel processing and the other factors that would support volume processing of data, and speed from streaming data, flowing data from different data sources to your storage devices. There are a lot of databases that support multiple parallel processing, like Greenplum, Oracle, Teradata, and Hadoop.

 

Q9: If I were to engage for an IoT application, what would be the start?

A: It might be better if you could consult first with a third-party company that already has the experience or an offering of IoT solutions in the market. It is quite hard to say outright what the specific software that we are going to use in your IoT platform. We need to undergo some discussions within your organization before we could provide a straightforward platform that you could use. We could always start simple. But regardless of how simple it is, we still need to know what are the factors that we should consider for your organization.

 

Q10: Can you offer an outsource service to support an IoT application?

A: We could somehow handle it, given that we have partners. You may also directly talk to hardware vendors, especially about edge computing devices. We can also give you a list of vendors that you could contact for each IoT component

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