Hybrid Cloud Architecture

A Macro View of Microservices

In my last blog I defined Qlik’s vision for true hybrid cloud analytics – a single platform that supports ongoing infrastructure choice for our customers, provides a seamless experience for users, and evolves with any business’s cloud strategy over time.

I also touched on how, as leaders in the modern BI market, we’re committed to bringing the full depth and breadth of our user experience to a hybrid cloud environment.

Since we’ve defined the “what” – our vision for hybrid cloud analytics – the next step is to talk a little bit about the “how.” How we’re architecting a modern solution that will deliver the core elements of Qlik across environments, and also how that will deliver an experience our customers will love.

One of the points referenced in my last blog is how we’re architecting our new SaaS solution – Qlik Sense Cloud - to be cloud native, as opposed to lifting and shifting an existing application to the cloud. The foundation of our approach is our investment in microservices architecture, a now widely-adopted development approach that breaks down a large application into smaller, bite-sized pieces.

The vehicle for our microservices architecture is Docker, a container-based software platform. Docker allows us to have a ubiquitous artifact that is deployed to all environments and offers isolated execution environments for each of our microservices. Containers can also be easily ported across multiple environments, to support users’ needs to work across different infrastructures. By developing this container approach in a Linux environment, we’re building a hybrid solution that easily scales and handles peak workloads, regardless of where those workloads need to occur.

Why exactly are we investing in Docker and how will this approach optimize the experience for Qlik users?

  • This approach allows us to develop more quickly and economically by building, enhancing, testing, and deploying multiple pieces independently. Docker orchestration platforms are quickly maturing, offering flexible and reliable ways to run elastic and highly-available applications.
  • For end users, it means an experience that easily scales and is consistent across locations and devices. Microservices and Docker also allow us to move to more rapid, continuous deployment, and accelerate rollouts of new features and enhancements to our customers.
  • Our associative model, which runs on our patented QIX engine and enables all users to see the whole story in their data, is at the core of the Qlik Sense experience. Microservices architecture and containerization optimizes the use of it in a hybrid environment and makes the experience even more accessible, particularly for users who want to experience what’s easy about Qlik in a simple, portable way on multiple types of machines versus traditional virtualized software. Together, the power of Docker, microservices, and the QIX engine will also enable us to scale in innovative ways.

Why does #Qlik thrive in the #cloud? Learn about more the architecture:

Just as we’ve seen the shift from static virtualized hardware to elastic compute offered by IaaS providers, we see a microservices, container-based approach as the best way to meet a new wave of demands - scaling workloads in the cloud. As businesses deal a mix of infrastructures and data that is created and contained in multiple locations, it will be critical to optimize how and where analytics computing occurs. This should explain a little bit more about how we’re executing on our vision, and what we see as the critical foundation of a true hybrid cloud analytics platform.

Have you tried out Qlik Sense Cloud yet? Visit qlik.com/cloud to sign up for Qlik Sense Cloud Basic and get started with Qlik Sense for free. If you’re already a Qlik Sense Cloud user, sign up for a free 14-day trial of Qlik Sense Cloud Business from your cloud hub!

 

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