Elastic (elasticity and flexibility)

Glossary

"Elastic (elasticity and flexibility)"

This glossary explains various keywords that will help you understand the mindset necessary for data utilization and successful DX.
This time, we will explain the concept of "elasticity" (resilience/flexibility), which is important for understanding the benefits of adopting cloud computing, and through that, we will consider the essence of how IT will be used in the future.

What is elastic (resilience/stretchability)?

Elasticity refers to the ability to dynamically change the specifications and quantity of IT resources used after the fact in response to changes in demand, etc. In Japanese, it can be translated as resilience or flexibility.
The word "elastic" itself refers to something that is elastic, like rubber, and is used in a variety of fields, but in IT it is sometimes used to refer to the excellent features of cloud services and the like.

"Elastic" appears in the name of a cloud service

Even if you don't know what the word "elastic" means, it can be found in the names of cloud services and in phrases used by IT products (especially those made overseas) to introduce the features of their products, so you might be thinking, "I don't know what it means, but it's a phrase I see everywhere."

Perhaps the most well-known example is the use of Elastic in the names and descriptions of AWS cloud services. For example, "Amazon EC2" is a long-standing AWS service and is probably the most well-known service, but in fact, "EC2" is

Amazon EC2: "EC2" stands for "Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud"

The name implies that it is an Amazon service that provides "Elastic Cloud," a cloud service that provides computing resources.

There are many services other than EC2 that have "Elastic" in their names.

Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)
Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)

These also have Elastic in their names. Most of the abbreviations with an "E" are short for "Elastic."

Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR)
Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS)
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
Amazon ElastiCache
Amazon Elastic Inference
Amazon Elastic Transcoder
AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery
Amazon Elastic Map Reduce（EMR）
AWS Elastic Beanstalk

These are also cloud services with "Elastic" in the service name.

Many of these services have names that simply describe the service's functions (such as "File System") followed by "Elastic." In other words, each cloud service is uniformly promoted using the phrase "elastic," as in "This is an elastic cloud service that provides... functions." That's how important the concept is. So what does "elastic" mean?

"Elastic" means "flexible and flexible"

Elastic means flexibility or resilience in Japanese. For example, "Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)" is a flexible file system provided by AWS as a cloud service.

Even if you want to use a file server to handle files on the cloud, there are a variety of possible actual usage needs. Some people just want to store a small number of files (and want to keep it cheap), while others are using it for very serious purposes, storing files in the terabyte range. Also, it may be that you start out using it on a small scale, but as your needs grow, it ends up being used on a large scale.

The ability to adjust the specifications of the services used in response to such varying levels of demand, and the ability to quickly and flexibly change the specifications and scale of use after the fact in response to increases or decreases in demand after use, just like a rubber band that can be adjusted to suit demand, is called "elasticity."

Why are these characteristics necessary and important to your business?

Elasticity makes life easier for IT system managers. Before the advent of cloud computing, IT utilization almost always required accurately predicting the scale of usage in advance. For example, if you were running an in-house file server, you had to build the system based on the assumption that around 100 gigabytes would be enough. As a result, if it was barely used, there would be a lot of waste, and if it was used more than expected and you ran out of space, you would have to either carry out time-consuming, costly expansion work, or ask everyone to "conserve" and reluctantly delete files, putting up with the inconvenience.

In the past, in such situations, IT personnel may have been scolded for not making accurate predictions in advance, with people asking, "Why didn't you analyze things properly and make a plan?" However, what if the very act of "having to make decisions that require accurate predictions in advance" is unreasonable, and what if we have been forcing people to do so up until now?

Furthermore, this difficulty of "having to predict and plan in advance" can "hinder the achievement of results" not only in the utilization of IT but also in business.

It may not be possible to predict in advance: Our company has become a hit!

For example, it may seem possible to predict to some extent how many users will visit your company's website. You might think it will be roughly the same as last year, or not much different from your competitors, or that hardly anyone will visit a company website anyway.

However, suppose your company is suddenly interviewed on television, or miraculously becomes a hot topic on Twitter. This may be a stroke of great luck, but from the perspective of your company's website, something unexpected has happened: one day, a sudden, unbelievable surge in traffic far exceeding your expectations. In the past, in such cases, the website would go down in an instant, wasting the massive amount of traffic that had been received, and you would not be able to take full advantage of the opportunity.

However, building a high-spec website that can withstand the concentrated load in the event of such an unexpected event would have been too expensive and unrealistic. The solution to this problem is an elastic cloud service. If you use an elastic service, you can quickly increase your website's capacity even after you know there will be a sudden increase in access, so you won't miss the opportunity.

It may be impossible to predict in advance: You don't know which games will be a hit or how big they will be.

It also has a major impact on business design. Let's say your company has created an online game that you're proud of. Now, how many users should you expect? If you estimate too cautiously, you might end up having to limit the number of users even though they're flocking to you, resulting in a missed opportunity. Or, if more users than expected enter the server, the server might become overloaded and slow down, leading to a bad reputation for the game, with people saying it's "too slow to play."

However, even if you take a chance and prepare enough servers in advance, what will happen if they end up being unoccupied? The "large fixed costs incurred every month" will turn into a huge deficit, which will be a big problem.

Taking these risks into account, it is not easy to decide which works to develop, how to develop them, and what scale of access they should be able to withstand before releasing them.

If you have to predict and plan ahead in situations where such risks are possible, you will have to be careful with every decision, which will take time to make decisions and slow down your business speed. It will be difficult to take risks with challenging titles where post-release predictions are difficult, and you will likely miss out on big opportunities that arise by chance after release.

"Elastic services" is not just a topic that concerns IT engineers, but a topic that "could change a company's business itself."

There are services that can only be realized with elasticity

Some services are difficult to realize unless they are elastic. For example, services that are subject to drastic fluctuations in demand are difficult to provide with traditional IT infrastructure, even if this can be predicted in advance.

For example, a website that lists successful university entrance exam candidates experiences a huge load only at the moment the results are announced, with almost no access at other times. Traditional IT infrastructure would either be prohibitively expensive or render the site useless to most people due to the high volume of access. However, if cloud computing could be used, which can massively increase usage for just a few hours after the results are announced, it would be possible to handle real-time announcements on the web.

Let's say you wanted to use a member website to interact with the fan club members who had gathered at the stadium. In the past, the fan club site's web server would crash, so you had to give up on such plans. It would be different if you spent money to set up a special system, but plans that would cause a surge in traffic were generally not allowed. However, by using an elastic cloud, you can consider realizing such plans and provide better service to your customers.

"Elasticity" is necessary in the VUCA era

It is said that we are currently living in the VUCA era, and since it is said that "uncertainty is the essence," this means that we are now living in an era in which advance analysis and planning are difficult.

Rather than trying to make accurate predictions or responding by tightening management, we can change our way of thinking by actively utilizing the possibilities brought about by technological innovations in IT and making good use of elastic cloud services, which will free up business design and turn VUCA from a risk into an opportunity.

So far, we've used the example of usage load to explain "elasticity," but there are other desirable characteristics that can be changed after the fact, such as being able to quickly expand something that started in the Kanto region to overseas, or having a system that was quickly created with an emphasis on speed and a safe, secure, and robust system that you can trust to handle your work. These can also be solved by using IT infrastructure effectively with a similar approach.

Are you leveraging elastic IT?

There are many different ways to use IT in the world, and there are also many different cloud services. (Especially in Japan) Cloud is often seen as a way to reduce costs, but whether or not you are utilizing such flexible IT resources can have a major impact on your business.

Cloud elasticity can be used not only as a means of cutting costs, by moving your IT thinking and IT systems to the cloud while keeping them the same, but also as a way to change the relationship between IT and business.

However, simply introducing AWS services with an E in their name does not mean that your business will become stronger. You need to think about what kind of flexibility your company needs, and whether it can be utilized within your company's capabilities, such as personnel.

For example, Amazon EC2 allows you to change the specifications and number of virtual machines available in a matter of minutes, but using it to change the scale of a service requires the work of an infrastructure engineer who understands the service.If your company does not have this ability, then using Amazon EC2 will not mean that you have achieved elasticity.

In addition to flexibility, there are many other things to consider when utilizing IT, such as cost, functionality, ease of use, stability, security, and whether it is a managed service. Furthermore, the situation of a company's business changes constantly, and the requirements for IT that supports the business change significantly between the initial launch of the service and when it is fully utilized thereafter. There are many things to consider, and the situation is constantly changing.

"DataSpider" connects a wide variety of systems, data, and clouds

In other words, while IT has many possibilities, there are also many options, and there is a lot to consider when choosing the right IT for you. This may seem like a difficult situation, but if you can "reconsider such decisions later," you can mitigate risks and successfully move your business forward.

"DataSpider" is a product that "connects" various systems, data, and clouds, allowing you to freely link and utilize them using only a GUI. It can be used as a means to effectively use and combine various cloud services.

Because it can be used with just a GUI, even those who are not highly skilled engineers with extensive cloud knowledge can use the various cloud functions.Moreover, it is not just an easy-to-use, simplified tool, but also has the capabilities of a professional tool, such as full-scale development and the high processing performance and reliability required for IT systems that support business operations.

"HULFT Square" allows users to change the scale of their usage themselves

The Japanese iPaaS "HULFT Square" allows you to use this "connection" method as a cloud service, with the same user experience as DataSpider.

Not only is it a cloud service that eliminates the need for in-house operations, but users can also easily change the scale of their use of HULFT Square themselves, and can increase or decrease processing power and the number of servers used to suit their needs on the user screen.

When using it for full-scale business purposes, it is important to be able to properly process the large amounts of data at the workplace, to respond to sudden increases in data volume due to changes in business conditions, and to perform highly real-time processing.You can configure the processing capacity and number of servers that handle data integration processing, as well as the type of processing they will be responsible for, so you can adjust the scale of use to suit various changes in the situation.

Related keywords (for further understanding)

EAI
- It is a concept of "connecting" systems by data integration, and is a means of freely connecting various data and systems. It is a concept that has been used since long before the cloud era as a way to effectively utilize IT.
ETL
- In the recent trend of actively working on data utilization, the majority of the work is not the data analysis itself, but rather the collection and preprocessing of data scattered around, from on-premise to cloud. This is a means to carry out such processing efficiently.
iPaaS
- A cloud service that "connects" various clouds with external systems and data simply by operating on a GUI.
SaaS
- When people generally think of the "cloud," they are referring to an initiative to provide software usage as a service.

Are you interested in "iPaaS" and "connecting" technologies?

Try out our products that allow you to freely connect various data and systems, from on-premise IT systems to cloud services, and make successful use of IT.

The ultimate "connecting" tool: data integration software "DataSpider" and data integration platform "HULFT Square"

"DataSpider," data integration tool developed and sold by our company, is a "connecting" tool with a long history of success. "HULFT Square," a data integration platform, is a "connecting" cloud service developed using DataSpider technology.

Another feature is that development can be done using only the GUI (no code) without writing code like in regular programming, so business staff who have a good understanding of their company's business can take the initiative to use it.

Try outDataSpider/ HULFT Square 's "connecting" technology:

There are many simple collaboration tools on the market, but this tool can be used with just a GUI, is easy enough for even non-programmers to use, and has "high development productivity" and "full-fledged performance that can serve as the foundation for business (professional use)."

It can smoothly solve the problem of "connecting disparate systems and data" that is hindering successful IT utilization. We offer a free trial version and online seminars where you can try it out for free, so we hope you will give it a try.

Free trial seminar here

Why not try a PoC to see if HULFT Squarecan transform your business?

Why not try verifying how "connecting" can be utilized in your business, the feasibility of solving problems using data integration, and the benefits that can be obtained?

I want to automate data integration with SaaS, but I want to confirm the feasibility of doing so.
We want to move forward with data utilization, but we have issues with system integration
I want to consider data integration platform to achieve DX.

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Elastic (elasticity and flexibility)