Common Challenges and Pitfalls | Metucat Solution |
New Projects | Usually start with a “happy” stage with multiple design and development artifacts created by multiple players. However, documentation becomes obsolete and useless. Code ownership is murky at best and 80% of all the projects are stuck at 80% complete. Multiple versions become intertangled and deployment presents amonumental challenge. Metucat creates metadata design, specifies data components, defines systems relations, dependencies and ownerships.
| Metucat creates and maintains live documentation of the systems architecture and provides clear definitions for deployment and maintenance.
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Common Challenges and Pitfalls | Metucat Solution |
Migration to the cloud | Migration to the Cloud assumes the usage of the new cloud architecture components. For example, moving from SQL server to RDS, using AWS Kinesis, etc. | Metucat documents existing structure and creates a blue print used to move/deploy data to cloud-based platforms.
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Cloud implementation could be “multi-cloud”, multi- component and multi-platform. One of the inherited benefits of cloud deployment is the availability of multiple platforms compared to a single planform in on-premises implementation. | Metucat as a multi-platform tool that enables efficient data transfer and deployment to the required platforms.
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Common Challenges and Pitfalls | Metucat Solution |
Consolidation of different platforms | Mergers and acquisitions require either the merging of a different platform or migrating to a consolidated platform. | Metucat is a platform agnostic tool. Firstly, data structures shall be described in Metucat and then deployment to the new platform can be implemented. Metucat allows to effectively change the platform again if needed.
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M&As also present challenges of integrating newly acquired diverse and multilocational development groups. | When platforms are documented in Metucat developers get full clarity on consolidation path and have common understanding with all the involved parties. Further joint “conversations” are conducted using “common language”.
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“Switching over” with live data and users results in major business disruption. | Metucat allows parallel run during the transition by synchronizing deployment to old and new platforms.
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Common Challenges and Pitfalls | Metucat Solution |
Microservices sustainability and robustness | Each microservice supports distinct business domain and provide REST APIs to operate these services. Microservice hasa narrow but well-defined functionality. Previous SOA implementations resulted in overgrown services supporting large domains that frequently were developed and supported by multiple teams. Microservices are developed for distinct atomic domains(for example: product, account etc.) and allow clear definition of who is responsible for particular service, witha couple of interfaces instead of potentially hundreds. Any given “service is not greater than the team”.
The flip side of this approach is that the exponential growth in the number of microservices is difficult to comprehend and maintain in all their entirety.
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Metucat solves the problem of ‘Microservices hell’ when the number of services gets too high. Metucat ensures effective management of services dependencies. Metucat defines every service data structure, provides versioning, data publications and subscriptions, metadata and services definitions.
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Common Challenges and Pitfalls | Metucat Solution |
Data Lake orchestration | Data Lake replaces one all-encompassing enterprise wide data model with multiple interconnected and independent data models and allows multiple data providers and users to work independently and in concert. | Metucat allows the user to document incoming data, have clarity on data structures and data ownership. Metucat supports versioning and publication/subscription procedures.
Metucat allows the user to introduce ‘common data models’ and enable subscription to ones.
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The flip side, similar to microservices, is potential loss of control, difficulty in management and governance (Data Lake becomes Data Swamp). |
Metucat is a platform agnostic tool and therefore data models stored in Metucat can be used for different vendors platforms which are used or planned to be used in a data lake.
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Common Challenges and Pitfalls | Metucat Solution |
Compliance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) | These regulations require to clearly define which data is private, who is able to use it, who is responsible and to define clear ownership. Data can be classified and Personally Identifiable Information (PII). | Metucat allows the authorized user to classify data and define access rights, like multilevel PII data.
Pub/Sub feature of Metucat clearly shows who is subscribed to which data and allows the authorized user to see who uses PII data.
Metucat supports data access approval workflow. Compliance department can be a part of this approval procedure.
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Common Challenges and Pitfalls | Metucat Solution |
Multilocation outsourced development | Productivity suffers due to lack of “common architectural language” across multiple locations and time zones. Critical knowledge is lost due to team turn over and out dated documentation. Component ownership is not clearly defined which leads to conflicts and the need tore-work.
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Metucat documents and describes architecture using “common language” across multiple teams. Metucat provides approvals workflow, messaging and issues environment. It improves the team’s productivity, especially for remote teams. Using Metucat development task can be formalized as a model withrelated issues and then shared with the responsible team. Knowledge, history and design issues logsdon’t dissolve in case of replacing the development team. Architecture development history stays in Metucat.
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