Striim: how best to supercharge your digital transformation

When you scan the news headlines for what’s topical you will find hard to miss headlines relating to hybrid IT, cloud security even talk of the coming Low-Code and NoCode and revolution. However, what remains front and center for many in business today is the most important issue still to be fully addressed and that is our pursuit of a Digital Transformation (DX).

Why is DX still on the minds of so many and why does this continue to be relevant for the NonStop community? To fully capitalize on technology and the data being created, business needs to accelerate the way it generate information and in turn, processes that information to gain actionable business insights. It is for this reason so many discussions of late center on DX and perhaps it’s simply that the global pandemic has triggered a degree of agitation over just how little progress towards DX has been achieved of late.

In a March 18, 2021 post to the HPE web site, 3 steps toward a more digitally inclusive world, HPE CEO Antonio Neri said, “Looking ahead, we need the innovation and digital transformation that the global pandemic accelerated to act as a catalyst to reset how companies, societies, and governments work together to drive adoption of new digital technologies, inclusively and democratically.” It is this coupling of innovation and DX that is driving these discussions and yet, as much as business touts the importance of innovation, much of how IT operates remains unchanged. It’s hard to know what business DX initiative is and what isn’t simply because the path to DX is full of pitfalls.

This is the subject of the May 3, 2021 post to the Striim blog, A 2021 Guide to Modernizing Data Integration and Supercharging Digital Transformation that was jointly written by Striim’s John Kutay and Steve Wilkes. In this post they address a number of key considerations as well as several pressing issues that need to be prioritized by business in order to ratchet up the pursuit of DX. Part of the blame for the slow progress that has been made to date lies with the utilities and tools business continues to rely on for legacy data integration – a topic that is well known among members of the NonStop community.

According to John and Steve, “Over 80% of digital transformation (DT) initiatives fail because of unreliable data integration methods and silo-ed data. This figure comes as no surprise because companies find it challenging to handle ever-larger volumes, sources, and types of data. As these businesses struggle to bring data to a unified environment, they’re unable to gain critical insights and make informed decisions.” Recognizing this outcome, business needs to first assess existing integration solutions and then create a plan executing your modernization ideas even as you remember to test your plans against something small – as NonStop users are all too familiar with is that baby-steps are often the prudent way when pursuing major undertakings such as DX.

When it comes time to prepare a plan, Wilkes says that “for modern applications, real-time user experience is the new standard. Users expect data to be fresh, and for their reports to show accurate up-to-the-second information.” John and Steve then add, “Advanced data integration platforms allow you to capture and ingest data faster. Instead of hours- or days-long waiting, data enters staging areas, file systems, and other targets in near real-time. You can then more effectively gather and analyze data from on-premise or cloud databases, sensors, robots, vehicles, and other sources.”

Striim is one such modern data integration solution and for the NonStop community, it brings with it the added value of processing in real time:

“Modern data integration solutions also provide in-flight data processing. Data is delivered in a format suitable for advanced analytics. Advanced data integration architecture allows you to integrate data from Oracle, PostgreSQL, AWS RDS, and other data warehouses or databases – including NonStop SQL – to Google Cloud. Or you can continuously move data from various sources to different Azure Analysis Services or Cosmos DB. Whatever your preference is, integration technologies play an important role. You can establish, run, and enrich real-time data streams to new data platform types and execute your digital transformation strategy.

“‘New platforms help companies innovate faster with low-code/no-code applications fully managed in the cloud,’ says Steve. ‘Traditionally companies would have to set aside or purchase new hardware in their data centers, install thick software clients, and build software in languages like C, Java, and shell scripts. The new cloud based paradigms have truly shifted the build-vs-buy question firmly into the buy category – where buy is more of a monthly lease that a costly one time purchase.’”

The pursuit of DX is understandable a priority for today’s business leaders. The quest for greater business insights together with delivering innovative products and services is driving the dismantling of technology silos as the need to tap the fresh data that is perhaps the freshest when it comes to that residing on NonStop fuels businesses to adapt in real time. What the global pandemic is illustrating best is that the way we used to do things is no longer acceptable. Change has simply accelerated with the rapid adoption of new ways to conduct business that has been among the most visible outcomes from the spread of COVID-19.

In this post to the Striim blog a guide to modernizing and supercharging your journey to DX has been proposed. To read more of what this guide includes, simply click on the hyperlink (above) or cut and paste the following url into your browser –

A 2021 guide to modernizing data integration and supercharging digital transformation

Should you have any questions for Striim as a result of reading this guide then please don’t hesitate to reach out to us, the Striim team. We would be only too happy to hear from you, anytime and all the time.

Ferhat Hatay, Ph.D.
Sr. Director of Partnerships and Alliances, Striim, Inc.