Promise, we won’t quote that Earth, Wind & Fire song…even though it’s awesome. But it’s September and we hope you remember there’s still a whole lot of year left to conquer as we move into the chillier months. Pull out your best sweaters and cozy up with some good news from Tidal!

WHAT’S NEW WITH US

PARTNER’S CORNER

We had another successful migration enablement workshop in September, graduating personnel from another 6 partners, more on them next month.

Also, we may have missed a proper welcome to Aliter, Lyceum and SyneCxity in the past, so a warm belated welcome to you! We look forward to helping you and your customers realize the benefits of a transformative cloud migration!

TIDAL EVENTS

We’re keeping this virtual ball rolling with another All-Virtual Migration Enablement Workshop set for Tuesday, October 29, 2020. Register now and join us from home while our own David Colebatch walks you through the first 3 phases of the cloud migration process.

Can’t wait? You can sign up for a one-on-one if you like the sounds of a dedicated, private workshop, with our team.

PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS

We’ve released a ton of new improvements and capabilities recently, and we’re excited to be sharing this and others in the coming weeks:

MIGRATION METHOD RECOMMENDATION ENGINE

With a large portfolio, it can be difficult to know where to start. You might ask questions like “Which of my apps are worth refactoring? Should I rehost or replatform?”

Tidal Migrations’ recommendation engine will point you in the right direction for each of your applications by measuring each app’s value and technical composition against your organization’s priorities.

ASK DAVID

“Hey David, I was in your migration workshop and you talked about Scrumban…what is that exactly and why do you use it?” - Avash, Johannesburg

Great question Avash,

Scrumban is actually a hybrid of both Scrum and Kanban. Scrum is one of the tactics that helps you adhere to the values and principles outlined in the Agile Manifesto (popularized in 2001 by Jeff Sutherland and others), and Kanban is an older scheduling method developed by the Japanese for just-in-time or “lean” manufacturing, which was eventually ported to Software Development.

At Tidal, we’ve found that this approach, which includes a daily standup (the Scrum) with the visual scheduling of the Kanban board (we like Trello for this) can be applied directly to cloud migrations. We use this in the vast majority, if not all, of our projects and have found that the velocity, knowledge transfer, and the ability to get to migration completion on-time and on-budget, has been incredible.

For more information on some of these concepts, check out Sutherland’s TED Talk and a link to the Agile Manifesto with a terrific description of the 4 values and 12 principles from the CIO Wiki.

Also take a look at more of the Kanban method, or play around with Trello.

Since adopting this methodology… we’ve never looked back!

Keep those questions coming!

David

TIDAL WEBINARS

If you’re looking to access our past webinars, they’re available on demand after you register. Topics include: ingesting your application portfolio, source code analysis and more.

CLOUD NEWS

• Microsoft’s underwater data centre resurfaces after two years - Who says Microsoft doesn’t have fun? Two years ago they sunk a cylinder full of servers off the coast of Orkney, UK to experiment with potential environments for data centres. What they found were lower failure rates, and that it could run steadily on wind and solar power. The future of data storage? They’re hesitant to say…
• Europe will go it alone on digital tax reform in 2021 if it must, says EU president, as bloc directs €150BN in COVID-19 relief toward cloud, AI and broadband - Ursula von der Leyen is done with the internet’s nonsense. While the EU commits to a huge investment in tech companies over the next decade, von der Leyen is set on establishing a fair digital taxation system, as well as regulation on things like AI, whether the rest of the world is ready or not.
• Microsoft Azure and AWS’ partnership model will make enterprise software companies dependent on cloud providers - Expect to hear a lot more of these two names around your organization. If you’re a software provider, now you’ll have to purchase cloud storage from one of these two giants if you want to make it big in enterprise. Silver lining: they’ll get the word out about you to all their powerful friends.
• Quantum startup CEO suggests we are only five years away from a quantum desktop computer - Conversations were being had at TechCrunch’s Disrupt 2020 this month. This 5-day online event of idea-sharing for tech startups hosted a panel of 3 CEOs of quantum computing startups, in which IonQ’s CEO Peter Chapman professed that super-high-powered quantum computers might be taking up residence on desktops. See what the other two had to say before you get excited.
• Microsoft Azure launches new availability zones in Canada and Australia - Although late to the party, Microsoft just made it possible for users in Canada and Australia to access multiple data centres in the same region through “availability zones.” No need to fret if your local data centre is down, they can talk to their neighbours now!
• Airtable raises $185M and launches new low-code and automation features - This spreadsheet-database hybrid software has taken the startup world by storm the past few years. Originally a no-code hub for everything from CRM to task management, they’re now expanding to allow users to flex their coding skills and up their game in making use of this gem.
• Intercom is Named to the 2020 Forbes Cloud 100 - No, not THOSE Intercoms. This business-to-customer messaging system, used by the likes of Amazon, Facebook, and Lyft, just made spot #28 on the honourable Forbes Cloud 100 List released this month. See who else made the cut.

That’s all for September 2020. If you’ve had a good time with us this newsletter, let us know by sharing on social media (links below) and keep your friends up to date.

And in case you missed it, check out our August newsletter.

Stay united and see you in October!

-Tidal Migrations