AWS Device Farm is a service that allows you to test your Android and iOS-based apps on real devices and not by using any simulators and using AWS Cloud.
A fierce competition exists in the mobile app development market as the competitor companies are trying hard to get recognized by showcasing their products in the App Stores. After developing an app, one key factor that is remembered is that you should never be in a hurry to upload an app in the App Store. This is where lies the importance of the reviews from the various customers. If by any chance, you upload an app that is unstable, there is every chance that the app will be outright rejected by the users. So, the success of an app depends mostly on this review.
There are many reasons on account of which the apps simply crash and these are network problems, bloatware on the device, inadequate error and exception handling as well as memory issues. Herein lies the need for testing the apps, on multiple platforms and devices as well as on different networks.
Testing an Android App: Role Played by Android Espresso and AWS Device Farm This service enables you to provide the solution that you are seeking to test the app in the right way. You can upload your apps in the Cloud and run Fuzz tests for the purpose of simulating random activity or utilizing the built-in app explorer.
AWS Device Farm will crawl your app and helps to capture screenshots as well as performance metrics and logs. The advantage that it offers is easy to use and quick. You can track the issues that will be faced by your Android app if you use Espresso in AWS Device Farm, much before the app is displayed on the App Store.
What is AWS Device Farm?
There is no need to get distracted by the issues that are faced while testing your Android app like constructing automation infrastructure, building expensive device labs, or even gathering different types of devices and above all ensuring that the devices are available in stable conditions, whenever they are required. The importance of AWS Device Farm lies in the fact that it handles everything most efficiently. In a matter of few minutes, you can test the app on a wide range of devices. Moreover, not only does it allow you to choose the devices, but you can also choose the make and model of the chosen Operating System. It is capable of testing various carrier connections as it can simulate the connection type and conditions.
What is Android Espresso?
Android Espresso is the most popular test automation framework for testing Android apps. Testing is often done with the help of running testing scripts by the developers, Google has now come with Espresso Test Recorder, a tool that helps to create Android apps tests, easily and quickly. So, the advantage lies for those people who do not have any background in coding or building test scripts, generating automated user interface tests for their apps to run on AWS Device Farm. So, the efficiency of the app developers is enhanced, and also the quality of the apps.
How are the Developers Utilizing the AWS Device Farms?
Android Espresso actually helps the developers testing the apps locally as well as the Cloud Setup like AWS Device Farm. AWS Device Farm is used by the developers for the purpose of testing iterative changes through the development process. The functionalities are also tested so that they work well on the various targeted devices. That the applications are running well with the backend system is done with automated canaries running periodic tests using API. It also generates test reports that are of immense help to the developers. It offers the best place to produce issues related to mobile analytics.
Finally, Android Espresso and AWS Device Farms help to ward of app issues, so that only the high-quality apps get displayed on the App Store, not the unstable ones which will fetch the best of reviews from the users, a crucial requirement for building a highly successful app.
Digital transformation and enterprise risk management can be thought of as parallel highways. That’s because any transformation effort will introduce new risks and change to the organization’s overall security posture. As organizations continue their digital transformations, the transformation of security and risk management must be an integral part of that journey. Organizations must integrate security and risk management into DevOps and Continuous Delivery (CD) processes. The ultimate goal is to have resilient systems that can not only withstand cyber attacks, but also carry out mission-critical business operations after an attack succeeds.
Taking the analogy further, imagine that each of these highways has three lanes: one for people, another for process, and a third for technology.
People in an organization form its culture. For digital transformation to succeed, many organizations will need to transform the culture around risk. That might include inculcating respect for personal information, and organizations consciously building digital services with privacy in mind. The workforce needs to be adept in using digital tools such as cloud, APIs, big data and machine learning to automate and orchestrate the management of a digital security threat response.
Process relates to how an organization overhauls its business processes to be agile and yet secure at the same time. This might involve moving from ITIL behaviour to DevOps or other proactive operational approaches. Prevention is important, but the ability to respond to manage digital threats is much more relevant, as this proactive behavior coincides with DevOps principles.
Technologycan present new risks, but can also help address risk. Many top technology companies, for example, are using technologies to automate processes in a way that’s secure. Some common best practices include building loosely-coupled components wherever possible on a stateless/shared-nothing architecture, using machine learning to spot anomalies quickly, and using APIs pervasively to orchestrate the security management of digital entities in a scalable manner.
Three paths — people, process and technology — are changing how enterprises reduce risk.
From a CIO’s perspective, each new digital entity and interaction adds risk: Who is this user? Is this device authorized? What levels of access should be allowed? Which data is being accessed?
Leading organizations will securely identify these users, devices and other entities — including software functions and internet of things (IoT) endpoints — and they’ll do so end-to-end in an environment where services are widely distributed.
At the heart of digital transformation is data. The importance of protecting this critical business asset is bringing cyber security into sharp focus in the boardroom as well as the data center.
In the past, an enterprise’s cyber security team focused on IT security risks and threats, with little reference to business risks, objectives and strategy. The team would deploy controls within a defined corporate network boundary, driving a very technology-focused approach to cyber security. The team generally spoke its own language of cyber security terms and acronyms, little understood by the business.
Digital transformation, however, means that cybersecurity can no longer be handled as an after-the-fact bolt-on, separate from the rest of the business. Organizations must consider security as part of their strategic approach, viewing cybersecurity and resilience as business enablers that help enterprises safely embrace the benefits of digital transformation.
Even the World Economic Forum recognizes the importance of high-level responsibility for the strategic governance of cyber risk and cyber resilience. In a report for boards of directors, “Advancing Cyber Resilience: Principles and Tools for Boards,”[i] the forum concluded that “cyber strategy must be determined at the oversight board level.”
Aligning cyber security strategy with business objectives — and obtaining board-level sponsorship — is key to attaining and maintaining a strong security posture.
Most organizations are struggling to reduce the growing gap between their security posture and the threat landscape, with its ever-increasing cyber attack sophistication — and at the same time, they are trying to stay on top of changing security-related regulatory and legislative obligations that differ across geographies.
Spending more money isn’t necessarily the answer. Security budgets are increasing, but the security posture gap is getting wider.
Here are some reasons why:
Lack of integration, with little or no understanding of the cyber security risk posture throughout the business, makes it difficult to reduce business risk.
Lack of prioritization means security investments are often allocated to implement the latest security trend or technology, without first addressing security foundations.
Bottom-up technical siloes cause a lack of alignment between the security solutions deployed and business objectives.
Lack of optimization results in overlap of security controls and failure to take advantage of virtualization or new functionality in existing security tools.
Reinventing the wheel increases time, cost, and risk.
Closing the gap requires upper management to set a clear cybersecurity strategy and requires the cybersecurity team to focus on managing cyber risk appropriately and proportionate to the business’s goals and risk appetite.
If they want to be truly cyber resilient, enterprises must also be prepared for the worst to happen. It’s no longer a question of whether they may be breached, but when, and what the likely consequences are. The legislative and regulatory implications of data breaches continue to increase, and the reputational damage they can cause to a business can be extremely damaging. A Juniper Research report estimates the cost of cybercrime to businesses will total $8 trillion by 2022.
A key strategy for addressing these challenges is the adoption of a cyber reference architecture (CRA), which is a framework of strategies, tactics, and capabilities that provides a common language, a consistent approach, and a long-term vision to help organizations align security strategies with the business and accelerate their digital transformation.
The CRA helps organizations to develop business-aligned security strategies and accelerate their digital transformation, including:
Understanding which objectives matter most to the business
Defining security requirements to achieve those objectives
Mapping out the best approach for deploying targeted security capabilities to support the plan
This approach helps organizations in all industries move from a reactive mode to higher levels of cyber maturity. Organizations are become better equipped to visualize their future state and develop a roadmap of short- and long-term timeline for getting there.
As a result, organizations can develop a resilient and agile security architecture that supports a risk-based approach to business strategy. This crucial planning helps organizations:
Define how to protect what matters and enable digital business initiatives
Optimize security budget and operational cost
Avoid financial loss by managing existing and emerging risks
Ensure compliance with laws and regulations
Security organizations are constantly faced with decisions about upgrading tools and adding services to improve processes. Before the work begins, it’s imperative to understand all risks and the state of the organization’s security posture with a strong cyber reference architecture.
The past year was filled with news about cybersecurity, including phishing scams, ransomware, and new attack methods. And this year, security experts again predict even bigger attacks and smarter hacks that will be met with heavy fines slapped on regulated organizations for not preventing or minimizing a breach on their watch.
Adhering to compliance standards and finding gaps in data security is a multi-faceted process that requires a holistic approach, expertise, and vigilance. If your organization hasn’t done a self-assessment of your cybersecurity and compliance processes, or done so recently, now is the time.
Research shows that more than 56 percent of organizations reported moderate or severe impact of security challenges on their cloud computing use. Even more, reported compliance and regulation challenges. For organizations that must meet regulatory standards—like HIPAA, PCI, SOC, ITAR, FIPS or CJIS—the disruption and consequences in the event of a breach can cost more than they are worth in fines, a tarnished reputation and remediation efforts.
After working with hundreds of organizations on their compliance and data security processes, I’d like to share five key benefits of a cybersecurity self-assessment.
A cybersecurity self-assessment can help your organization:
1. Measure security risks objectively across teams and roles
Even the most brilliant and passionate IT teams, partners and vendors can sometimes become myopic or defensive about their technology infrastructure and practices. And because most organizations have a variety of clouds, platforms and IT infrastructure, security exposures may not be discovered without an assessment, or worse, a traumatic event. A self-assessment tool can offer an objective lens from which to have critical conversations across teams and roles.
2. Flag risks and exposures
From intrusion detection software to cybersecurity insurance, cybersecurity is a multi-faceted and ever-changing effort. Cybersecurity experts are in high demand, and many organizations face exposures for which they aren’t equipped to assess or internally manage. A self-assessment can be the starting point of identifying new and old areas of risk and can help you ask the right questions regarding protecting your organization.
3. Document and track security efforts
In the world of cybersecurity, there are no guarantees that “digital trauma” won’t strike. That’s not the reality of today’s world. However, multiple layers of security processes can isolate issues in their tracks and prevent worst-case scenarios. In addition, a well-prepared organization should be able to quickly respond to multiple severity levels of security situations. Assessing your risk is the first step in developing cybersecurity and compliance efforts, documenting and training your organization around a security plan, as well as tracking progress toward remediation efforts.
4. Quickly adapt to regulatory changes
Regulations change, technology platforms evolve and teams adopt new devices, subscriptions and solutions. Your organization’s IT environment must continuously evolve to keep up with the reality of everyday business. What was a best practice a year ago may not be so today. Routine security risk assessments can help your organization stay proactive. And with the right cloud tools and controls, your organization can quickly adapt to changes in the marketplace.
5. Empower your users
Multiple experts cite the number one threat to cybersecurity is your colleague down the hall. The people in your organization have the most opportunity to expose your data, second to vendors with access to your systems. From proper management of user access and authentication to education around recognizing phishing emails, your users can make or break your security. Organization-wide education and preparedness are key to preventing, as well as responding, to a security event.
Are your meetings like the weather? You know, everyone complains about them, but no one seems to be able to do anything about it. We’ve all endured long, boring meetings that feel endless. And we’ve all struggled through an exhausting, frantic week overfilled with back-to-back meetings. The higher your job title, the more time you likely spend in meetings. Some CEOs, for example, do little else.
Even worse, many meetings fail to achieve their goals. Nearly half the respondents to a recent survey of office workers called too many meetings their No. 1 time-waster. In another survey, respondents rated about 1 in 10 meetings as poor.
Despite these challenges, your organization can dramatically improve its meetings. The key, which I’ll explain in more detail below, is using collaboration products and services that are integrated. Rather than working individually, these integrated products and services can provide you with a true meeting solution that’s seamless from beginning to end.
Wrong-way down
If the solution is that simple, then why have past attempts to improve meetings failed so miserably? Two main reasons:
1. Process focus
Many past approaches at improving meetings focused too heavily on avoiding certain behaviors. For example, some business leaders forbade the use of PowerPoint. Others ruled that no meetings could run longer than 30 minutes. Still others — including celebrity execs Mark Cuban and Elon Musk — went as far as instituting policies of no meetings at all!
But few of us have the level of autonomy needed to completely forbid the use of PowerPoint or hour-long meetings. Even if we did, PowerPoint can be useful, and long meetings are sometimes necessary. As a result, these process approaches rarely work.
2. Standalone tech
Until recently, the marketplace was overwhelmed with far too many collaboration products. Most of these products were designed for standalone use, meaning they could not be easily integrated with other products. While some level of product integration was possible, that work had to be done by the user. Unfortunately, many users already had IT budgets and staff stretched thin, so they tended to put this integration work on the back burner, often permanently.
The integration solution
What’s new is the emergence of collaboration solutions that are truly integrated. Now you can deliver a seamless process from the minute a meeting is booked all the way to its post-meeting notes. Integration also means that all meeting participants can benefit from this seamless experience, regardless of their location and which devices (and operating systems) they use.
Here’s an example of how your meetings could be enhanced with an integrated solution:
Before the meeting: The meeting organizer tells their AI-powered voice assistant to review the participants’ smart calendars, select a date and time that works for all, review the meeting-room calendar to find an available room at a convenient location, and finally email invitations to all intended participants. Each participant can join via a common interface — and on any device from any location.
During the meeting: Meetings can be started automatically, either by recognizing the chairperson’s device or with a voice assistant. Remote workers participate via integrated video and chat solutions. The entire team collaborates using a smart whiteboard and document-sharing capabilities.
After the meeting: Videos, text-based notes, PowerPoint decks and other meeting materials are automatically shared with all participants, regardless of whether they use a PC, tablet or smartphone – and regardless of which operating system (Windows, iOS, Android, etc.) these devices run on.
In the near future, meetings could become even more productive with the help selected technologies now in the early stages of development. For example, AI transcribing services will provide written transcripts, accurately capturing and identifying the spoken contributions of all participants. Similarly, auto-summarization tools will automatically generate a short set of text notes after a meeting ends, informing participants of the project’s status, new tasks and more.
Get help here
While selecting an integrated meeting solution is easier than it’s ever been, that’s not to say it’s simple. Today’s solutions are not one-size-fits-all. You still need to consider your organization’s unique needs and requirements. Only then will you be able to select the best possible solution. A trusted partner like Anteelo can help you evaluate integrated meeting solutions and find the one that’s right for your needs.
When companies prioritize their digital transformation initiatives, modernizing IT support might not be at the top of the list. But there’s nothing that creates a bigger drain on employee productivity and ultimately impacts business outcomes more than a disruption in an employee’s critical work activities, compounded by an unsatisfactory interaction with IT support and service desks.
The traditional, non-standardized service desk is facing a variety of challenges. Digital solutions are increasing across the entire IT landscape, introducing extensive change and escalating requests for support. When service desks themselves move from manual to digital processes, they will need more skilled expertise (which many enterprises lack), along with a disciplined approach to understanding how to apply and introduce automation – tasks made more difficult by constrained budgets.
Meanwhile, the nature of workforce support is changing in today’s gig economy as companies rely more on contractors who expect an intuitive and agile experience when dealing with the service desk – and as expectations among all employees for superior customer service continue to rise. People want personalization. They want to connect on their own terms, whether that’s getting proactive guidance from a virtual agent, talking to a smart bot, choosing self-service from a system that anticipates their needs, connecting to a human agent, or receiving face-to-face support. And they want their problem resolved quickly and painlessly – ideally without even having to ask for help.
Forward-thinking companies are increasingly moving to digital service desks that take advantage of AI, machine learning and advanced data analytics to more efficiently and effectively respond to the expectations of today’s workers. Moving to a modern service desk also lays the groundwork for a future in which the service desk proactively detects and fixes problems before they occur, without the employee even knowing about it. And eventually, the service desk will become more like a personal digital assistant, anticipating employee actions and automating low-level functions through technologies like robotic process automation (RPA).
Of course, companies can’t accomplish these goals all at once. The preferred method of transforming the service desk is to take a phased approach that provides quick wins and builds a solid foundation for next steps.
Characteristics of a digital service desk
Here are the three phases of a good digital IT service desk journey:
Reactive: In this phase, companies take advantage of embedded analytics, AI and machine learning to provide a self-service experience that is intuitive and simple to use, while at the same time is contextually aware and adapts dynamically to the employee’s environment. On the backend, unified support is unified across IT, HR and facilities functions to provide an end-to-end channel that is engaging and fast. An always-on virtual agent or service bot offers an “on demand” dedicated support agent that can converse in natural language to help employees instantly. The agent is plugged into the company’s knowledge bases and ITSM system.
Proactive and predictive: Captured analytics from the employee device provides data that enables machine learning and AI tools to identify issues that are likely to crop up. The system then automatically takes action to resolve the issue. This smart support detects and proactively prevents disruptions before they occur, keeping employees productive and lightening the load on the service desk.
Digital assistant: The final step would be an advanced use of analytics, AI and RPA to understand an employee’s work routine and orchestrate actions on that employee’s behalf. Taking mundane tasks off an employee’s plate gives them more time to be amazing by focusing on what they do best to benefit the business.
There are many benefits associated with transforming the traditional service desk:
Providing exceptional customer service in a support desk context is a cornerstone to empowering workers, making employees feel more engaged and valued.
The use of automation, AI and self-service channels frees up support staff for higher level activities and helps the IT department control service desk costs.
Finally, business outcomes are improved because employees are operating at peak efficiency.
Digital support desks enable enterprises to deliver new levels of employee experience, optimize support and establish a competitive edge – everything today’s enterprises demand.
There’s no secret to a mobile app that rules million hearts that goes beyond how well its Backend and Frontend is developed.
And the presence of well-structured frontend and backend, or their lack thereof, is what leads to a rise or a steep fall of any mobile app and ultimately the startup backing it.
While Frontend in itself a lot sorted in terms of it being a mere ‘the-step-ahead’ on the efforts put in by the Backend team, it is the Backend development process, particularly one involving Mobile app backend database, that needs some extra eagle-eye attention.
Backend Development, as we have already established in our Guide on Mobile App Backend Development is what powers the effortless experience that mobile app users swoon over and decides the future of a startup. And to achieve something so crucial the industry has offered a number of development tools and platforms.
One such tool that we are going to discuss here at great lengths is a powerpack offered by Google that goes by the name of Firebase Backend-as-a-Service – a platform that has over time created a lasting impression on both developers and startups, establishments around the globe.
Here’s an infographic showing the market of Firebase and enlisting the companies using Firebase in their processes…….
Now that we have seen the market that Firebase has captured, let us now look at what is Google Firebase and what does the term Firebase for Startups entail –
What is Google Firebase?
Firebase Backend-as-a-Service which started off as a YC11 Startup grew into a next-gen mobile app development platform for Google in no time.
The platform that gives developers two options – Realtime and Cloud Firestore – frees Firebase developers from the need to manage servers, write APIs or simply manage their datastore and focus on something that really matters – Curating amazing user experiences.
Let us look at everything that Firebase for web apps and mobile apps is –
List of Firebase Features
A. It is Real-Time
Most of the databases present in the industry today makes you do HTTP calls to gather and sync your data. But, when you connect to Firebase, you make a connection via WebSocket and not HTTP.
Now, the case with WebSocket is that they are very fast and you are not required to make specific WebSocket calls as only one connection is enough to sync all your data through the single WebSocket.
Firebase web app sends over new data instantly as it is updated. When the client saves a change in data, all the connected clients get the updated data in real-time.
B. It Stores Files
Firebase offers an easy way to save the binary files to Cloud storage straight from the client. The storage comes with its own security rules system for protection of your GCloud bucket from masses while giving detailed writing privileges to the authenticated clients.
C. It Authenticates
Firebase auth comes with built-in email and password authentication system. It supports OAuth2 for Twitter, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and GitHub.
Also, since Firebase OAuth2 is mainly copy/paste, developers can finally bid adieu to the difficulty that comes tagged with Custom authentication coding.
D. It Hosts
Firebase comes with easy-to-use hosting service used for all the static files and serves them via global CDN having HTTP/2.
And to make the whole development process completely painless, Firebase host makes use of Superstatic, which you can run locally for all the testing needs. The Superstatic + BrowserSync development environment that Firebase comes with is very neat. While BrowserSync handles all the reloading of development app across the connected devices, Superstatic copies Firebase mobile app hosting in a way that developers can deploy straight to the Firebase for production use.
E. It is Fully-Featured App Platform
Firebase developer team has made it possible to integrate a bunch of existing and new Google products with your Firebase mobile app. A number of these features can be applied to Android and iOS but not Web –
Remote Configuration
Crash
Test Lab
Dynamic Links
AdMob
Notifications
Now that we have looked at what Firebase is and what it stands for, it is time to look into the reasons that make Firebase for Startups ideal for those who are just starting with the mobile app development domain and are looking for a platform that would help them concentrate on creating real value for the users, instead of dealing with the time-taking backend tasks.
Why Should Your Startup Use Firebase for Apps?
For the Amazing Analytics
What is Google Firebase if not a product that offers a series of insights and analytics? One of the most preferred features that come tagged with a Firebase mobile app is its Analytics dashboard. The dashboard is free and comes with a capacity of reporting over 500 different event types with each of them carrying over 25 attributes.
The dashboard helps give a clear picture of the user behavior and in measuring the different users’ attributions. Lastly, it helps businesses in understanding how users interact with their app, giving them ways to optimize it better for the future.
For Sorted App Development Process
For the companies using Firebase, the platform takes ownership of a number of processes that are otherwise known to take away a major part of the developers’ time thus keeping them away from developing quality apps that offer unprecedented user experience. The features that Firebase web app comes with, make it possible for developers to focus on what is important –
Cloud Messaging
Hosting
Authentication
Test lab
Remote Configuration
Realtime Database
Crash Reporting
Storage
For Heightened User Engagement
No matter what category your mobile app belongs to, the ultimate aim that all businesses wish to achieve is high revenue and popularity – both that comes as a result of positive user experience.
Firebase web apps and native apps come with a number of in-built features that not just give you insights into the users – how they are interacting with the app, the stage where they are leaving the app, the part they are engaging with the most etc, but also give you measures to correct declining engagement.
For Increasing Your Revenue Count
Firebase is more than a mobile app backend database. Firebase prepares you to earn high revenues on your mobile app. The AdMob Firebase feature enables you to monetize the app even when you are at the stage of thinking about giving a pleasant experience to your users.
With Firebase, you can show your ads to millions of the Google Advertisers in the real-time, select the format that suits your mobile app, and work with over 40 ad networks with AdMob mediation.
For Knowing What Went Wrong
The feature that comes with Firebase for web apps and mobile apps helps in the creation of a detailed report of error which is categorized in groups having comparative stack flows chosen according to the seriousness of the impact that it has on the users. Other than that, it also gives businesses the ability to register to the custom events which helps in identifying crash before it even occurs.
For Becoming Searchable
The only direct route, besides advertisement, that will make your brand a known name in the world of millions of prospective users is through mobile app indexing – a process that will place your application on the top fold of the search engine when a user enters a query seeking solutions that your app offers. Firebase for apps come with an in-built App Indexing feature which makes it possible for you to place your app on the SERPs and thus in front of millions and billions of Google Search Engine users.
For Inviting New Users
Google Firebase with its ‘Invites’ feature makes it possible for you to motivate and compel prospects to become loyal users. It allows you to send customized emails, invitations, and messages to the potential clients directly on their device in a time that you choose.
For Firebase Dynamic Links
Firebase Dynamic Links is an example of deep linking done right and a silencing answer to ‘Is Firebase good?’. The links work as you want them to, on the platform of your chose and even when your mobile app is not installed on users’ devices.
With the Dynamic Links, users get just the right experience of the platform, which they open the link on. When users open your Dynamic Link on Android or iOS, they are taken to the linked content of your app. Likewise, when the link is opened on a desktop, the link takes them to an appropriate place which would get them the right experience.
Moreover, Dynamic Links operate across different app installs functions: when the user opens a dynamic link of Android and iOS when the app is not installed, they are given a prompt to install the app, and once it is installed, the first launch page of the app is one that users clicked the link for.
For Powering App with Machine Learning
Nowadays, with the upsurging demand of Machine Learning powered mobile apps which contains features like – text recognition, face detection, image labeling, barcode scanning, and landmark detections – has become one of the must-have element for every app that is to be termed as innovative.
Firebase, with its ML-Kit, offers you both – an on-device and Cloud-based API which works even when the network connection is missing.
So, you see how beneficial Firebase can be for your startup?
Now even though there are a lot of benefits that come attached with the incorporation of Firebase in a mobile app, there are some hard to ignore limitations as well that come attached to the platform.
Let us look at them before we head on to studying the instances where it makes sense to invest in Firebase and places where it doesn’t.
The Limitations of Firebase
The Console is Not Very Useful
Although the console lets you do multiple things but in the end, it is not very useful. A very limiting part about the console is that there is a massive lacking of detailed analytics and logs. While you get a graph showing the database usage, it is difficult to know the number of times a file was downloaded until you find a solution for yourself.
Defining the Security Rules
Firebase uses JSON file using Javascript code with strings for defining rules on the storage and database. Now, usually it is not that big of a challenge as one can use Bolt for making the process a lot less painful, but the fact that once get around the dozen simple rules, the file gets unmaintainable.
Restricted Javascript SDK
There are a number of Firebase features that are implemented only in the iOS and Android SDKs. The most prevailing limitation is the absence of offline persistence when working on JavaScript.
Although, all your hybrid, web, and React Native applications will work even when data is lost momentarily when you close the tab or application the data is completely gone. So, it then comes on you to implement a cache, which can be a pretty time-taking task on mobile.
Limited Data Modeling
Firebase database is simply one big JSON file. There’s not even a single way to show many to many or one to many relationships. When put into practice, it means that you will almost always end with duplication of data everywhere.
Now that we have seen the limitations that Firebase comes with, let us look into the time where it makes sense to employ the platform and place where it doesn’t.
Firebase For Startup: When does it make sense and when it doesn’t?
After all plus points and limitations are seen and adhered to, the deciding factor of when Firebase should be used and when Firebase for Startup is a bad option ultimately come down to the complexity of the mobile app project.
If the app belongs to simple to medium level complexity, Firebase should be incorporated in your mobile app but if your app belongs to high complexity and deals in a lot of data, you should choose some other option, one where the data is entirely in your control.
Also, when you consider the Firebase pricing into the picture, it will again make greater sense to use it for smaller projects as compared to complex ones.
After all said and done, the fact remains that we have worked on Firebase, a lot, and have been enjoying the experience to a huge extent. So for us, the only right answer to – is Firebase good? Is YES!
So, before we help you get direction to our Backend team who would help you get started with Firebase, let us look at how our experience has been so far.
Our Firebase Experience
We have worked around a number of Firebase offerings.
And using Firebase Analytics, we have created several project management tools and content management systems.
Overall, we have enjoyed working on Firebase. It is hands-down an exceptionally useful layer and flexible platform for building both mobile and web applications.
The platform has worked in our favor under a number of different projects that we applied it in – project management platform, a real-time chat, and a billing system.
The one thing that we loved about it is that Firebase grows as your development cycle grows – we first used Firebase editor for mocking up data and getting the idea of how the application works and then, later on, used the datastore, the same one, for serving up a huge amount of data per month.
Apart from this, there are three other factors that made us stick to Firebase for as many applications as possible –
Lets us Avail the Power of Realtime
It is almost surreal when the application you have developed works in a true real-time sense. It doesn’t ask people to wait as the page loads but give them the information as they get asked for it.
But realtime is an everything or nothing element. In case your data fails to broadcast updates, it becomes difficult to join with the realtime data again, making it very tempting to drop the idea to real-time altogether. However, with Firebase’s APIs and high applicability, we get to work realtime from the very beginning of the project.
Easy Firebase Scalability
We have moved from some test projects to hundreds of live design products without having to deal with the database servers. Firebase scalability, indeed, has been one of the most convenient elements for us when it comes to handling an infrastructure.
Build Crucial Data Structure in Firebase
All the apprehensions that we had when it came to trusting Firebase for development of fragile and critical data structures were solved with us locking and securing a number of areas of the database for allowing only our RPC methods to modify them.
Wish to incorporate Firebase in your mobile app? Get in touch with our team of Backend Experts, today!
What’s the best way to prepare for the workforce of the future? With news of Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and others investing billions in training, you’d be forgiven for thinking the answer is simply “reskilling the workforce.”
And yet, reskilling is only one part of the solution. Creating the workforce of tomorrow requires a holistic approach to learning that enables the continuous development of new skills, a higher level of engagement, and an agile and thoughtful response to ongoing change. This, in turn, requires putting learning at the very core of the entire organization.
Vanguard organizations are already preparing the workforce by making learning foundational. Your organization can begin to do the same by taking these four action steps:
1. Make learning opportunities available to everyone in your complex demographic landscape.
Today’s workplace demographics are complex, composed of multiple generations with varying experience levels, specialization, tenure and learning preferences. HR practitioners must now determine how to leverage people, process, and technology around this workforce.
Globalization also affects employee learning and development. Workforces in different countries may need instruction that is sensitive to varied cultural and language preferences; remote employees need access to mobile learning and development tools. Similarly, the rise of part-time and gig employees requires organizations to think beyond traditional, synchronous, and on-location training.
Action: Increase engagement and productivity—and facilitate a valuable sense of community and collaboration—by providing training and career development opportunities to the entire workforce, including in-house, remote, global, part-time, and even gig workers.
2. Democratize talent with teams.
Today, an organization’s ability to pivot in the marketplace depends on agility—and agility requires a workforce that is networked and collaborative, i.e., team-based. Teams, unlike the traditional (and rigid) corporate hierarchy of the past, can form, dissolve and morph as needed to meet new and changing business needs.
Team-based structures also more effectively harness the expertise and wisdom of all employees, at all levels. In a team-based structure, someone may have only one year of experience, but they may also have the right expertise to contribute to a team’s success or even lead a team. And that’s the big “Aha!” moment, realizing that anyone can step up to contribute or lead.
Action: Democratizing talent means giving all employees an opportunity to contribute, regardless of tenure, assuming they have evidence-based knowledge and insights to share. Don’t dismiss employees’ perspectives or ideas based on age, tenure or role.
3. Understand and enable “learning while working.”
How can workers continue to be relevant amid the increased use of AI, cognitive technologies and other disruptors to traditional workflows? By engaging in continuous learning. For organizations, this requires making learning available within the flow of work, moving development from the periphery of the employee experience—day-long courses, five-minute videos, synchronous and asynchronous e-learning—to its core. You deliver learning opportunities directly to employees and make them conveniently accessible at all times. The right technology can make learning a natural part of everyday tasks and eliminate the time employees are physically or cognitively separate from work.
Action: Use tools designed to make learning integral to everyday work life. Consider technologies that not only ensure content is relevant for each individual but also integrate learning opportunities directly into daily work tools, e.g., Microsoft Office, Slack, and Salesforce.
4. Apply programs, solutions, and technologies designed to optimize collaborative learning.
Collaborative learning, when done right, accelerates the collective intelligence of an organization—a potentially powerful competitive differentiator in an era of constant change. When people come together to solve a business problem, you gain greater organizational intellectual property and intelligence than if you were to ask each person to solve the problem individually. It’s the same with learning. When people learn together, they become collectively something greater by hearing and responding to each other’s insights and informed observations.
Action: Better manage and distribute informal knowledge and employee insights. Employ collaborative learning technologies to make individual experience, wisdom, and insight available to a large, distributed learning population.
The age of automation is radically disrupting work as we know it. By 2022, seventy-five million jobs in 20 economies are expected to disappear, just as 133 million new jobs are created. And by 2030, McKinsey predicts that 375 million workers will need to find new work, as automation increasingly takes over traditionally human tasks.
Coping with this unprecedented change will require both a new way of working and what the World Economic Forum (WEF) and others are calling a “reskilling revolution.” WEF research suggests that, at minimum, 54% of all workers will need either reskilling or upskilling by 2022.
Fortunately, some organizations are already aware of this urgent need. Research by McKinsey discovered that 66% of surveyed executives saw “‘addressing potential skills gaps related to automation/digitization’ within their workforces as at least a ‘top-ten priority.’” A few organizations are even ahead of the reskilling curve, already making investments in programs designed to prepare workers for new roles:
JPMorgan Chase invested $350 million in a five-year global initiative called New Skills at Work. The investment will create new training programs, bolster collaboration and communication, enable research, and build upskilling opportunities.
Amazon’s Upskilling 2025 will reskill 100,000 workers by 2025. An investment of $700 million is earmarked for reskilling employees across all areas of the organization, including corporate, warehouse, retail, and transportation.
AT&T has invested one billion dollars in Future Ready, an internal program designed to reskill more than 100,000 workers.
The risk of not reskilling
JPMorgan Chase, Amazon, and AT&T know that keeping pace with the age of automation will require employees who are agile, flexible, and adept at learning. But what will happen to organizations that don’t address the need to reskill the workforce?
Organizations slow to adapt won’t fall behind overnight. They’ll fall behind slowly until it’s too late to catch up. The problem is, with the age of automation, that if you get behind on something this big—reskilling— you can’t double or triple your pace to keep up. People can’t adapt that fast. And organizations probably don’t have enough money to buy all the talent they need.
Five action steps to take now to address reskilling for the age of automation:
Identify the risk areas for automation. Certain areas will be obvious—rote processes, tasks that can be done faster and more efficiently via automation. Other areas won’t be as obvious: Experts predict that jobs such as insurance underwriting, pharmaceutical discovery, and long-haul trucking will be automated by 2030.
Identify what skills the company needs to succeed long term. Look at what the organization needs to continue existing work, as well as expand into new areas of work. What challenges are showing up in the marketplace and what key skills will help overcome those challenges?
Examine existing employee skills. Can employees transition to different areas of the organization or will they need to be completely reskilled? If they need to be reskilled, do they currently lack hard or soft skills? Can new skills be learned on the job or will employees need formal training, and if so, for how long?
Determine the right training for the right skill. While videos and microlearning are useful for just-in-time learning, effective reskilling in the age of automation will require far more than a library of courses. Technology and self-paced courses have a role to play, just not the starring one. A mix of learning modalities—instructor-led, microlearning, coaching mentoring—will provide employees with the best opportunity to learn and retain complex skills.
Communicate with everyone. Every employee at every level needs to understand how critical reskilling is to the future of the organization, and by extension, their own futures. Informing all stakeholders on a regular basis about the organization’s plans for the future can alleviate the fear of change and job loss, thus keeping employees motivated and engaged.
Wait and see? Or act now?
For organizations that want to remain competitive in the age of automation, a “wait and see” approach isn’t a viable option. It’s death by a thousand cuts for companies that don’t start to change now.
But getting started doesn’t require a major investment. I recommend organizations begin today by making small adjustments in the right direction—adjustments that over time add up to successful and sustainable change. Figure out the skills you are going to need. Communicate with everyone about upcoming changes. And use the right training for the right skill. Create small course corrections now so that your organization is on the right track and employees are more adaptable and engaged.
The digital movement is real. Consumers now possess more content at their fingertips than ever before, and it has impacted how we do business. Companies like Airbnb, Uber, and Waze have disrupted typical business models, forcing established players in different industries to find ways to stay relevant in the ever-emerging digital age. This post is not about that. Well, not in the strictest sense.
There are countless articles explaining the value of being digital. On the other hand, there are very few articles about how to get there. Let’s explore how to get there together, through an approach that I have named Risk-Based Transformation. RBT’s strength is that it puts technology, application, information, and business into one equation.
An approach that fits your specific needs
I’m relocating very soon, and with that comes the joys of a cross-country journey. Being the planning type, I started plotting my journey. I didn’t really know how to start, so I went to various websites to calculate drive times. I even found one that would give you a suggested route based on a number of inputs. These were great tools but they were not able to account for some of my real struggles, like how far is too far to drive with a 5- and 3-year-old.
Where are the best rest stops where we can “burn” energy — ones that have a playground or a place to run? (After being cooped up in a car for hours, getting exercise is important!) How about family- and pet-friendly places to visit along the way to break up the trip? What about the zig-zag visits we need to make to see family?
The list goes on. So while I was able to use these tools to create a route, it wasn’t one that really addressed any of the questions that were on my mind. Organizations of all sizes and across all industries are on this digital journey but often the map to get there is too broad, too generic, and doesn’t provide a clear path based on your unique needs.
A different approach is needed, one in which you can benefit from the experience of others, whilst taking the uniqueness of your business into account. Like planning a trip, it’s good to use outside views in particular to give that wider industry view; however, that’s only a piece of the puzzle. Each business has its own culture, struggles, and goals that bring a unique perspective.
RBT framework
To help with this process, I have created a framework for RBT. At a high level, RBT takes into account your current technology (infrastructure), application footprint, the value of the information, and risk to the business. From left to right, the least weight to the highest. This framework gives a sense as to where to start and where the smart spend is. See flow below:
Following this left to right, you can add or remove evaluation factors based on your needs. Each chevron has a particular view, in a vacuum if you will, so the technology is rated based only on itself. It will gain its context as you move through each chevron. This will give you a final score. The higher the score, the higher the risk to the business.
Depending on your circumstances, you can approach it David Letterman style and take your top 10 list of transformation candidates and run it through the next logic flow (watch for a future blog on how to determine treatment methodology). Or, as we did with a client recently, you can start with your top 50 applications. The point is to get to a place that enables you to start making informed next steps that meet your needs and budget to get the most “bang” for your investment.
The idea behind this framework is to use data in the right context to present an informed view. For example, you can build your questionnaires on SharePoint or Slack, or another collaboration platform that also allows the creation of dashboard views. You can build dashboards in Excel, Access, MySQL, or whatever technology you’re comfortable with in order to build an informed data-driven view, evaluating risk against transformation objectives. The key is that you need to assign values to questions in order to calculate consistent measurements across the board.
A living framework
Many years ago, when you plotted your cross-country drive on your map it was based on information from a fixed time. This was the best route when I drew the line on the map. Now, personal navigation devices hooked into real-time data change that course based on current conditions. In the same way, the RBT model is a living framework; it should have regular iterations in order to have course corrections as you go forward.
The intent of this framework and thinking is to build a context that makes sense for your needs, and then present data in a context that allows for better planning. That better planning should lead to a more efficient digital journey as we all continue to stay with, or ahead of, the curve.
If you have enjoyed this, look forward to my next post. There I will detail how the RBT framework is applied and the treatment buckets methodology.
