How Small Businesses Can Use Beacon Technology for Growth & Engagement?

It will be a smart choice to connect with your client using new technology through their smartphone instead of using traditional marketing. Marketing a business, whether it is small or big, there is always a challenge. It is difficult to stand out among the competitors and also make new customers to gain a maximum profit. Many more new ways are there for marketing. but marketing becomes easy and more trendy with the use of ‘Beacon Technology’. Let us see, what is it?

What is Beacon Technology?

Beacon basically looks like a WiFi router device. It is an indoor positioning system that uses a proximity technology to detect the presence of human by his smartphone and performs a predefined actions to send information. Basically beacon communication advertises through sending a small packet of data. It transmits information to smart devices near you to make location-based searching more precise.

Beacon Technology

Mainly it is a one – way communication. Message or notification can be sent through beacon device to a person passing through a nearby beacon device. This is a one way communication so person could not reply it. Beacons are battery-operated and Bluetooth – enabled small wireless devices. It seem as a kind of notification to a smartphone.

How Small Businesses Can Use Beacon Technology?

1. Retailers/shops-

Beacon technology is a way to connect with customers and offer them incentives to enter a particular store, look around and hopefully make purchases.

Beacon Technology for Retailers

• Greet customers when they come to the store-

In retail stores, it is often the case that no one knows a shopper is there until he/she makes a purchase. Beacon greets a customer by sharing virtual greeting when customer comes in a beacon range.

• Create a beacon enabled app-

Using beacon enable app, it can record a customer’s purchase behavior, enables progressively customized shopping suggestions, monitors wish lists and tracks customers activity within the store. Retailers use this data for expanding the  email list.

• Provide content-

Beacon is more helpful for customers in the shop, it tells what could he do after coming in a store. Updated fresh content can be provided to the shoppers. Thus shoppers get new variety of products and it increases the sale of store. It also gives information about the stuff available in store, special deals of the day, offers, Discount coupons. It also gives suggestions about items such as what can you choose with pizza, either coke or choco lava cake.

• Reward customers with loyalty program-

Retailers can use beacons to gift customers with loyalty program award points based on purchase behavior or even for entering the store.

• Tap to text the owner-

This feature allows customers to tap on the text and give comments regarding store or ask questions. This increases the communication and doubt clearing between retailers and customers.

• Keep track of customers-

Use beacon’s to track individual phone signals as customers pass through the store. This helps you to know which path they follow the most and which are of store they visit frequently, and how much time they spend in that area. The devices can also help customers navigate around the store, to find products more easily.

• Link to online content-

Beacons can broadcast content that performs any function the retailer considers beneficial. It includes such as tap to like on Facebook, post an image to Instagram, or link to the business’s website.

• Put Beacons in other locations-

For sale’s engagement, beacons can put on a place other than store. For instance, Store owner in the mall can fixes Beacon at the Entry-Gate of a mall so that everyone passing from there could get notified about the store and make an action of visit and purchase.

• Get brands to cover costs, update content-

Brands have much more interest in building relationships with customers. Let brands to add more updated content and promote it.

• Use Beacons and Geo- fencing events-

Businesses sponsoring or hosting an event can place beacons all through the venue to attract regard for entertainment options, food vendors, and keep attendees updated with the activities taking place at the event.

2. Catering Business-

Beacon technology is helpful to grow the small catering business also. Caters can put beacons to the venue of a program in which they are giving service. So that people coming to the venue get notified about the catering service and caters can get more customers and obviously more profit.

3. Travel-

A taxi service agency can use beacons and increase the profit rate. For example, Just think, someone is walking on a street after finishing his shopping. He is very tired and didn’t want to walk one step. At that point he gets notification about a taxi service with its fare and services. So he click to get one of the cabs and reached home safely without any extra extra effort. Does it helpful for him? Of course, it is efficient for customer and taxi service both.

4. Resorts and Restaurants-

• Check-in-

Waiting in a queue for check-in in a hotel is such a tiresome thing. Imagine guest is entering a lobby of a hotel and he gets pop up with a notification of check – in to hotel to a hotel app. The push notification shows the confirmation of check – in. Guest will be digitally checked – in and the app has already retrieved the personal details at the time of booking a room. Guest will get the hassle free experience starting from he enters a hotel.

• Finding the room and indoor navigation-

To navigate and interact with specific regions using geo-fencing, beacons are useful. To determine the position of a guest in a hotel and direct him to his room beacons can be used. It can also be used for the interactive tour of hotel or resort, where user’s attention is directed to the specific area when they freely walk within hotel building.

• Keyless entry into rooms-

A digital key is sent to guest by app as soon as a guest checked-in digitally. This allows them to sidestep the reception desk and proceed directly to his room. An iBeacon picks up the guest’s phone when in close network and unlocks the room door. This is such an engaging and efficient experience for a guest.

• Food –

Resorts use beacons to every table,when customers put their phones near beacon, menu app will open on their phone. Customer can view and select the menu from this and can also see the dishes liked by their friends because it is  linked to the app to social networking sites that the customer frequently visits. As soon as selecting a menu will finish, it will get sent to a kitchen staff in who is also connected through a beacon. As a result, this helps you ensure that your staff has the meal prepared on time. Once done, the restaurant has a cashless checkout facility by paying through the app.

• Check- out –

Guests can extend a stay or to check-out digitally by sending a push notification. As guest confirms the amount he receives a receipt and can now check-out easily. The whole process is seamless and hassle – free.

Final Words-

Small and medium businesses face massive competition with other main street businesses. And Beacons can truly be an effective marketing strategy for them. It is cost- effective. It also gives the wide reach as compared to other marketing ways.

Looking to ease up your business sale with beacon technology, then you might need some help getting started. Solace is the best place to develop beacon app for boost a business. We have a development team that will help to set you on your way to business innovation. Contact us for beacon apps development.

Why you should use Modern Software Development Practices for Your Organization?

Modern software development is about knowing the new tools and libraries as well as using them. Knowing how to create an optimal algorithm is not mandatory. Modern software development is for delivering high-value software in an efficient, measurable way that came up over and over again. Modern software development prioritizes the customer’s experience with a new feature just as highly as the time it took the team to release it. Software teams are now shifting their focus away from the traditional measurements of speed, velocity, and also efficiency in favor of goals around increasing customer satisfaction and quality code. Which we tend to think is the best way to measure success.

Pros of using modern software development into your business-

1.Traditinal testing is out, automated testing is in-

It is an obvious fact that we live in a time where customers expect the innovation they use to be updated continually, and if it’s not, they will replace it. Manual testing has some issues such as- insufficient automated test coverage, additional manual processes, and lack of build/deployment pipeline automation. Using Continuous integration and continuous delivery practices, teams can release quality software frequently and automatically from source code to production. CI/CD is quickly becoming table-stakes to meet ever-increasing customer expectations: 47% of teams ship changes and receive customer feedback faster with a CI/CD solution. Another 57% report fewer bugs or outages by adopting CI/CD solutions.

2. Reduce risk, increase customer satisfaction-

A problem that teams face is the ability to take off new features in safe, incremental and also measurable ways. Near about 75% of software and IT teams face the issues with bugs, defects or delays at the time of release.

However, teams who employ feature flagging are glad they did: 63% report better testing of features or higher quality software. This is largely because most teams traditionally roll out a new feature all at once, to 100% of customers.

Feature flagging allows developer teams to take off a new feature to some of the customers (say 25%) to diffuse risk with problems and bugs, and to measure customer feedback before moving out to the entire customer base. However tempting it may be to turn on a feature to customers all at the same time, the adoption of feature flags reinforces the importance of customer satisfaction.

3. Outcome-driven development: customer outcomes over team outputs-

Outcome-driven development diverts the focus away from velocity and the speed in which a feature is delivered. And it focuses on the customer value a feature creates. Teams looking to adapt an outcome-driven practice should consider software tools that provide real-time build and deployment information, data and analytics around customer adoption, and built in feature flagging.

4. Improved performance and productivity-

We all like a work environment overflowing with high results and productivity also. Modern software practices are not limited to Agile and DevOps. It carries development and productivity to existing work processes and expands upon them. Through version control systems like Git and Mercurial, digital transformation is adapted by customers with performance levels shooting up by 33%!

5. Customer engagement-

Frequency of product releases increases due to modern software development trends. Hence,  software development velocity in product development teams also increases. This results that your company engages users more and also interacts with them often. 

Increased speed of development means adding new functionalities and also versions to your innovative products. In this way it updates existing platforms and provides an immersive digital experience.

6. Scalable products-

Everyday, new functionalities are being introduced to languages and frameworks, so you can use existing tools and methodologies. Irrespective of you outsource development or do it your own, through modern software development practices, the future of your organization is ensured through Scalable Frameworks, Workflows and also Cloud. These companies ensured that cloud migration happened at the correct time so as to utilize the scalability of cloud computing.  Change is constant and the code is rapidly evolving into the future. Think about how Google Chrome and Facebook do multiple releases every day and how version control systems let you see back the previous code and process implementations for review and custom software development.

7. High ROI-

The customer is at the forefront of modern software development practices. A company’s vision rotates on how they deliver solutions for problem. Re-writing existing systems with modern practices results in iterating and also building software faster. This makes it more responsive and effective also for the customer. A more extensive reach is achieved, and target audiences are guided into expecting new releases this way. This ensures a high ROI for businesses and enterprises.

As the day passes new development practices are rises head in the market. Adapt the trends as per your project’s requirements. Adapting to changes is the key to growth. Modern software development practices will surely help you to boost your business. 

Need to develop software with modern software development practices for your business? Solace Infotech is an ideal place to get started. Expert’s team is well trained with modern developments to give you the best solution. Contact us for a software development that will boost your business. 

What is Devops? | The complete guide to DevOps (With Examples)

In an organization, it is always a best practice to find a new more advanced way to work. As a result, this leads in the success of business with quality solution in minimum time. This came up with the term DevOps. The basic is that, team works with cooperation. The important fact about DevOps is – it creates an environment in which developers can work closely with important stakeholders in the software delivery process. This is more systematic approach than traditional approach.

It is expected that a change in organization results in investment of time, money and also expertise. So the leaders can evaluate the capability and potentiality of DevOps with the terms of deliverables, gain, time for project completion. Analysis shows that DevOps has wide range of benefits. Adopting DevOps, the organizations can deploy the existing software not only rapidly but also effectively. Deployment of product can be done without compromising the quality of software.

Example of DevOps-

Let’s consider, there is a company that builds AI system. It has a developers team and operation team. Say, developers team as Team A and Operation team as Team B.

Team A will write and execute a code to create an AI system. And team B will maintain infrastructure in the real world environment and provide support for its users.

Team A has spent time for creating the AI system. This system will perform well, accept request, gives response etc. Team B has spent time to control development environment and everything is working seamlessly. Till right now there is no problem.

Team A handover the AI system to the team B to put it in real world. And now the problem starts. It has been seen that the AI system is not working properly, it couldn’t accept the request and also not giving response.

Now the Team B will get angry. Their product for operation is not working well in real world environment. Team A will be firm on their statement that the system made by them is working well before it deliver to the Team B.  And team B will guarantees that the environment was working well before the system came to the operation. Both the teams will blame each other and no one getting the responsibility of failure. As a result, even a small startup ends up becoming inefficient.

That is the point at which the idea of DevOps went to the fore and started being received generally. DevOps is only a lot of ways of thinking, practices, and tools that help company to give solutions quicker by encouraging a coordination of the development and operations function.

Where did DevOps come from?

DevOps is the posterity of agile software development – came from the necessity to keep up with the increased software development and the results achieved by agile methods. Progression in agile methods since last decade shows the need for an approach to the end-to- end software delivery life-cycle.

What is DevOps?

As recent organizations moving at the speed of cloud, DevOps emerges as increasingly common approach to software delivery. Development and operation teams uses DevOps to build, test, deploy and monitor applications with speed and quality. It is an approach of software delivery that promotes close collaboration between lines of business, development and IT operations. As it also removes the gap between your stakeholders and customers therefore it is essential that all stakeholders in the delivery process need to collaborate.

DevOps

Development teams will design, develop, deliver and run the software as fast as possible. Operation team can identify and also resolve issues as early as possible by examining, predicting failure, fixing issues and combining these two approach across development and operations. This gives you the ability to monitor and analyze critical issues. It is a collaborative approach of business, development and operation to deliver and run reliable software as early as possible.

Benefits of DevOps-

Benefits of DevOps

• It brings business, development and operations together to improve responsiveness to market demands.
• Fast delivery of code
• Fast time to market
• High quality software
• Collaboration between developers and operations get improved.
• Requires less time for fixing bugs and issues.

Methodologies of DevOps-

DevOps brings not only development but also operation teams together to work on project in minimum time and with higher quality by eliminating issues and fixing bugs. They can build, test and release software more quickly with efficiency and speed.

DevOps methodologies include the following:

• Continuous integration- Here coding, integrating and testing take place.
• Delivery- It includes continuous integration, with focusing on product releases.
• Continuous deployment- It focuses on automated release of projects as early as possible.
• Operate – It is for conducting the development operations of configuration management and continuous monitoring.

Principles of DevOps-

DevOps principles are the combination of idea – Collaborative learning and Collaborative relationships within development and operations. It focuses on increasing the deployment rates, upgrading reliability, stability and also the security of production.

• Continuous experimentation encourages risk- taking and also learning from success and failure. Continuous attempts results in future success.
• Beginners can learn from experts and also can share knowledge with others.
• DevOps automation improves efficiency.
• Organization can get continuous feedback, so it gets points to improve themselves.
• Incentivizing development, test, and deployment teams to collaborate on shared goals.

Final Words-

As per the example stated above, it has been observed that DevOps is important to deliver, develop and run the software quickly and also reliably. Also, DevOps has the ability to monitor and analyze the issues and resolve it immediately to deliver efficient system.

We at Solace believes in benefits of adopting DevOps. Our Experts are well trained for effective product development using DevOps with minimum time. Contact Us and we’ll be glad to help you through effective software development using DevOps to make your business successful.

Effective Considerations to choose the technology for Web Application

With last 2 decades, many technologies and platforms grow a head in the market. Also the development trends are reaching to the sky with its functionalities. What is the most important thing to consider when developing web applications? Choosing the best technology from the bucket of vast technologies is a crucial task. The choice of a technology is challenging for small businesses and startups, because they have a limited budget. And so the necessity of technology that provides the most bang for the bug to get their projects off the ground.

The right choice of technology is a key to project’s success, whereas the wrong choice of technology can be the reason of failure. So, here we are going to help you to decide the appropriate technology for your web application.

What is a technology for web app development?

Web App Development

Before proceeding to the criteria for choosing the web technology, just clear what contains the process of web development? There are two main sides of web development: Client-side and Server side. Client-side can be known as front-end. Server side includes functional programming, database and the server itself.

Client-side Programming-

Programming at client-side involves appearance of a web app that users see on their screens. This is also called as Front-end. Below are some of the major front-end technologies-

1. Cascading Style Sheets(CSS) and Hypertext Markup Language(HTML). HTML focuses on how to display the contents of a web page, while CSS styles that content. Bootstrap is another technology that helps framework for managing HTML and CSS.
2. JavaScript (JS) makes web pages interactive. JavaScript has many libraries for eg., jQuery, React.js, and Zepto.js and frameworks for eg., Angular, Vue, Backbone, and Ember for fast and easy web development. There are many JavaScript frameworks available for effective development.

Server-side programming- 

Server side is not visible to users but it helps client-side to function as required. The main challenging task is to choose the server-side technology. Server-side programming are used to create the logic of websites and applications. Frameworks for programming languages offer lots of tools for simpler and faster coding. Here are some popular programming languages with their frameworks-

• PHP (Laravel)
• Java (Spring)
• Ruby (Ruby on Rails)
• Scala (Play)
• Python (Django, Flask, Pylons)

How not to choose web technology?

1. Don’t Choose according to Personal Preferences-

It is good to rely on your personal choices when choosing a technology for a web application. But there is a problem- This methodology functions admirably just for individuals with a strong foundation in web advancement.

If you have a lot of experience in web development or you are a chief technology officer, your choice may be correct. But if you don’t have enough knowledge of the web development process, this paradigm may lead to down. Because you have chosen the wrong technology.

2. Don’t choose according to the previous projects-

Regardless of how effective your past projects are, you satisfied them before. The same technology you used before may be out-dated now. In addition, your projects are not the same , hence the technology on project may not be appropriate for another.

3. Don’t choose according to the competitors’ Experiences-

Gaining from the experience of your rivals might be the correct technique, but not for choosing the technology. Keep in mind that your project is unique and the goal is to beat your opponent companies. If you failed to choose the right technology, you’re likely to face the challenges in the future which is more costly.

Criteria for choosing the technology-

1. If your requirements are focusing towards product transaction or anything which is market oriented then it is pointing to E- Commerce project.

2. The requirements are focusing on content, then it is reflecting the importance of content delivery.

3. If you have a lot of search system requirement be it in any domain,  at that point the web search tool related application should spring up.

4. Types of Web applications– 

Important thing to choose is the type of web application you’re going to develop. A technology is a toolset to create a web app. So the decision should be appropriate. According to complexity, web projects can be divided into three types: 

• Simple- These web applications are created with the help of out-of-the-box solutions. For eg., Landing pages, simple online stores. 
• Mid-level- These type of apps have more functionalities as compared to the simple apps. These web applications are build with the help of frameworks. Eg., apps for large e-commerce stores. 
• Complex- Such type of web apps have lots of functions and integrations. They are developed with different web technologies and may have some programming languages. For eg., Social networks

5. Time to Market-

It is an important factor for choosing the technology for startups and for small businesses. The faster you develop and deploy applications, the more ahead of contenders you’ll be. Time to market is depend on technology you select. 

Issues you should consider when choosing a technology-

1. Out-of-the-box solutions-

Look out whether a technology has some out-of-box solutions for adding necessary functions to web apps. 

2. Integration with third-party solutions- 

Ensure that the technology you choose supports integration with third party solutions. Because it helps you to add functionalities as per your need.

3. Developer availability- 

Regardless of whether you’ve chosen the technology, there’s as yet an issue- You need developers. You should check whether you’ll be able to find developers with expertise in the technology you decided. And also you need developers to maintain it after launch.

4. Documentation and developer community-

Development of an application is difficult. There is possibility of occurrence of some issues after deployment. So to find out a solution and fix the issue, the technology should have a large developer communities.

5. Development Cost-

Development cost of a web app depend on the salaries of developers and also on the maintenance cost. Highly skilled web developers demands to be paid with higher salaries. Accordingly your expenses are increases. Maintaining an app is another side of web development. To reduce the maintenance cost , you should opt for free open-source technologies. For eg., Ruby and Rails framework is available with the MIT licence, which means it can be modified, upgraded, and used without any restrictions.

6. Security- 

You want your web application to be secure. Hence, you should choose technologies that allow you to create a really secure app. There are lots of different opinions as to which programming language is the safest, but in truth, no language guarantees 100% safety.

Conclusion-

As you have seen, selecting the right tech is a real challenge. Choose the technologies according to your project. You shouldn’t rely on time-proven technologies only, even if they have been used by some large and successful companies or prominent projects have been accomplished with their help.

Need to develop best web app for your business? Solace is a software company which specializes in custom web applications development as our core strength and foundation. Contact us for web app development that helps you to achieve the success that you deserves.

Design Thinking for AI : Sustainable AI Solution Design

History of Design Thinking and AI-

It is important to consider and think about the subject area of AI from the design thinking perspective. There is a wide scope of solutions to design for AI applications. Hence, developers need to be aware about new emerging idea of Artificial Intelligence. This catches a significant part of the development that will possibly happen in the AI space so the issue can be tackled utilizing another methodology. If we think about AI from design thinking perspective, some ideas came to focus. We can use AI as a tool and also a platform. Don’t restrict yourself to think about technology as a sole- domain of innovation. We can do empathizing to prototyping faster if we take advantage of design thinking in AI.

Core Challenge with AI-

There is no universally accepted approach about the implementation of AI. At the basic level, some initiatives are being launched, but with design thinking there is more structure to the approach. Some startups and companies have a problem with data analytics or their logistics, and they want to use AI to solve it. It only covers some part of potential of AI. So when using AI, it is beneficial to think about its design perspective. Experts who promote design thinking in their organization can speed up the AI adoption, achieve organizational alignment and also achieves their goals with reducing resistance to organizational change. With regards to AI, information just improves it in the long haul. Plenty of raw inputs are necessary for AI.

Design Thinking for AI- Future of innovation –

Design Thinking for AI

Developers and Engineers need to consider how AI and change go connected with time. It is necessary for companies to study the current AI model and implement design thinking into it. So the future of innovation is that many experts are making AI with design thinking.

1. Empathize-

It is essential to current issue. This incorporates understanding the issue at a more detailed level and also immediate analyze the current situation. There are many challenges and problems about data analytics need to be considered at the starting level. The point of innovation needs to be introduced at early stages of how good we integrate AI. This is when we have to think about the problem by considering the current challenge.

2. Design-

Characterizing the issue goes connected at the hip with understanding the issue plainly. It is important to define the problem clearly in a single sentence or paragraph. This helps teams to make right decisions for AI launches. Using the best procedures of design thinking, development can be effectively done. Because some of the challenges and difficulties came to existence when companies think about AI from Design. When core problem is defined, they are able to discover the efficient solutions and so can move to the next step very fast.

4. Ideate-

This is the next step in AI evolution in which companies discovers new solutions and ideas about the current problem. They are additionally ready to consider AI comprehensively and apply it to the issue that they’re endeavoring to handle. This is important for how detailed learning and machine learning can integrate in one solution. Sometimes you need to use AI to process image metadata. That is the point at which you can plan an AI solution for assistance you out. In any case, there might be difficulties in center and guaranteeing that the AI tool can enable you to scale.

5. Prototype-

It is the best way to create prototypes instead of creating AI integration and launch. These prototypes takes the necessary information to design. This will be the working model that gives unique capabilities. At the point when organizations move ahead with prototypes, they are able to design multidimensional products offered under a single banner. Prototyping is simply the most ideal approach to ensure if any omissions are found during this stage. If the product is launched directly in the market without having much thought in the prototyping stage, you may have passed up key bits of knowledge.

6. Deployment and Testing-

This is a stage where prototype proven to be successful and has higher chances of success to be found. There is a constant testing on AI technology being implemented. When new errors are found and new features are requested, go back to phase- 1, where you think about the problem with compassionate view. This helps you for AI fixes instead of focusing all problems at once.

Combined Power of Design thinking and AI-

Better Algorithms-

New idea discussed in web space is design thinking for artificial intelligence. Use human thinking to create new applications for machine learning and also define parameters needed for a machine to execute. AI will not reach its potential unless good designers guide the algorithm execution.

New creative ideas-

Computer designs are more effective when human generate the constraints. Google newly launched its People + AI research initiative, for creating a user- friendly approach to AI, and this is the best example of user centric.

Better design research-

Machine learning has outperformed humans for detecting and predicting off of data. It offers designers and broaden the toolkit to research new problems. In the development of artificial intelligence the two need to come together to improve human intelligence. Tech organizations utilizing AI need configuration thinking as it will immensely improve their calculations. Configuration based organizations need to incorporate AI into their work. Doing as such will release another rush of better research and new innovative potential.

Final Words-

It is important to think about AI from a design point of view. It is the best approach when it comes to solving complex problems with AI. The process from empathy to the complete solution could be complex but with design thinking developers can achieve the goal.

Artificial intelligence is going to be adopted by many industries. Human life is becoming more easy due to use of AI.

If you’re interested to adopt AI technology for your business, then you might need some help. Solace is an ideal place to start, and the experts there will be more happy to develop AI system for you and set you on your way to business innovation. Contact us for developing AI system to incorporate in your business which tends to success that you deserves.

Blockchain in Healthcare : A Case for Innovations & Opportunities

Developing organization need the progressive changes in all their aspects as time and technology are changing continuously. When it is about the healthcare field, the importance of growth reaches to the higher level. Latest technology also has impact in Quality healthcare services. Multiple industries are embracing the blockchain technology to improve the way in which they work. One of the ventures that are hoping to embrace the blockchain is the healthcare industry. It has introduced new tools that make healthcare industry more secure and consistent and asset serious. If you are not aware of Blockchain, just have look at our blog for basics – Blockchain – The Basics you should know.

Current healthcare industry-

Concentrating on quality of health care services means improving patient health management to a best level at all times. In any case, government principles and guidelines are making procedures much increasingly complicated and long. Because of this, keeping such procedures flawless and as yet giving successful patient consideration isn’t attainable much of the time. The serious issue in giving quality medicinal services administrations is the gap between providers and payers. The dependency on the middle – person is supply chain makes it worse.

In a healthcare field, patient’s critical data stays dissipated crosswise over departments and systems. This results in inaccessible of important data and couldn’t be available in times of need. The current ecosystem couldn’t be considered a complete because multiple players in the system don’t have a system that is smooth for process management. This is inadequate handling the exchange of information. Healthcare data filled with errors and misleading information is about 40%.

Solution- Blockchain in Healthcare–

Blockchain in Healthcare

Many industries are using the blockchain technology. So, how can healthcare industry will be far from it? It also introduced in healthcare industry. Blockchain is a standout among the most problematic innovations that has surprised the world nowadays. A blockchain is a distributed ledger that keeps the record of transactions and activities performing throughout the network. No one can change the data after adding it to the disseminated record. Information stored on a blockchain is secure. If anyone has to make a change in one block, it is necessary to do changes in all related blocks.

Working of blockchain is depend on three major principles-

Private key cryptography-

In this principle, algorithm uses a secret key as a variable to encrypt and decrypt the code. This key is secret even when algorithm is not. In a blockchain, a reference of the secure digital identity is created, however, the transactions are on the open network.

Distributed ledgers -

 A distributed ledger also known as a shared ledger and it is referred to as accord of shared records. The ledger is updated in real time and no central authority is responsible to maintain the ledger. Besides that, network participants updates the ledger. Changes made in the ledgers are reflected within seconds.

Authentication -

Verification is a procedure that demonstrates validity. Here, authentication of all transactions takes place before added to the chain. As soon as information is encrypted and digitally signed and stored, authentication will get sealed.

Growth in healthcare Space-

Many insurance companies and healthcare IT providers are also entering the blockchain. Both Aetna and Anthem are working with Blockchain to present new value in the field. Due to the use of blockchain they are using flexibility and multidimensional capabilities of the technology.  

Many insurers are thinking to use smart contracts, that takes information directly from the patient without having his critical information.

Blockchain in healthcare is helpful in the EHR field. This helps doctors and specialists to be connected with information to be shared over critical systems.

Walmart additionally acquired a patent to use blockchain to be utilized for medicinal records and leading in general research in the hospitals in the network. This has helped them produce gigantic outcomes inside the space, consequently offering ascend to an increasingly intelligible system of channels in the healthcare industry.

They can produce medicine, release documents and stay consistent to administering body that drives the industry. Walmart doesn’t need to hire lengthy staff contracts to deliver the medicines on time every time.Blockchain helps them to be more prompt with industry when it is the case of use of medicinal products.

Blockchain use cases in Healthcare-

Blockchain to increase Healthcare security-

To enhance data storage and patient private documents, it has been widely used. The best way to approach Blockchain is to understand how it impacts the Healthcare field.Starting from billing to the patient introduction, there are multiple stages in the patient journey in which Blockchain can give a positive effect. It can provide higher security. Therefore misuse of the information can be eliminate. There is additional control over the data spilling out of from one end to another. From Healthcare fraud to incoming threat detection, there is the various applications of the technology.

Scanning for fraud in the healthcare space-

The total financial fraud of healthcare is close to $10 Billion each year. It includes drugs, delivery systems, and overall mechanisms that promote fraud in the healthcare space. This happens due to multiple agents coming out with fake drugs and in many cases.

Blockchain provides clarity in –

1. Better authentication and monitoring-

Specialists, medicinal experts, and analysts can pick up the perfect measure of data dependent on their confirmation level. Blockchain can return against more prominent guidelines and validation conventions that can be put away. Since recovery takes not exactly a second, Blockchain can empower faster verification which deters programmers. The opportune people can access the right data and records at the correct time.

2. Package tracking and medicine zoning at scale-

To confine access to drug at scale, blockchain can be used. Also, to recover packaging information that can characterize the role of the sender and the recipient, innovation can be used. The overall approach taken by Blockchain can enable greater integration across the board. At the point when a package leaves a specific office, it does as such with a following ID. The metadata, name, sending ID and other data gets recovered by means of Blockchain. This helps to increase full access to pertinent data. This makes the entire business considerably more secure generally.

3. At-source fraud detection via scanners-

In remote regions, there are often manual or non-existent checking of fraudulent medication. This makes for a characteristic outlet for forgers to exploit the circumstance. That is the place Blockchain comes in and gives the correct following and ID data to the source. Since it’s an increasingly proficient asset to convey, regardless of whether any single server comes up short the system stays dynamic. It will be simpler to recover once the issue has been caused because of the documented information of records.

4. Patient identification with Blockchain-

Because of the data leakage, patient’s identification have lost from the system. According to analysts analysis, over 6.1 Million records already leaked in 2018. It causes the problem of security in management. This arises the use of blockchain technology, owing to the increased security it provides. This innovation can enable suppliers to distinguish a person with unparalleled precision, through iris- acknowledgment and information coordinating.

Interested in incorporating blockchain for your business? Solace will be the perfect place to get started. Expert’s in blockchain will help your business to step forward in a wide market. For effective blockchain development, contact us.

Microsoft Azure IoT hub vs AWS IoT

The enormous cloud duo have entered the Internet of Things (IoT) space. Each one is offering new services and investing in their IoT platforms. The smart cities will have a strong effective future in which IoT and analytics plays an important role in both private and public services. Let us compare Microsoft Azure IoT hub vs AWS IoT.

Microsoft Azure IoT vs AWS IoT

What is IoT?

IoT is an abbreviation of Internet of Things. It refers to the continuous growing network of physical objects that feature an IP address for internet connectivity. It also feature the communication that occurs between these objects and other Internet-enabled devices and systems. Microsoft Azure IoT and AWS IoT are the most famous IoT services among all. IoT has a potential to manage lighting, parking, waste management. Smart city revolution is about connecting people, process, data and things through technology to enable more efficient, smarter living. IoT has potential to develop cities with technology.

Microsoft Azure IoT-

Microsoft’s cloud solution is Microsoft Azure. It offers a substantial number of cloud services, including mobile app services, storage offerings, messaging platforms and virtual machines. It enables not only reliable but also secure bi – directional communication between millions of IoT devices and a solution back end. Azure Con 2015 launched Azure IoT on Sept 29, 2015. It offers plenty of products targeted for use in IoT product development. According to price, Azure IoT is cheaper than AWS IoT platforms.

Features of Azure IoT-

Azure IoT Hub –

IoT Hub also supports numerous open- source SDKs, including .NET, Javascript, Java, C and Python. IoT Hub is the focal territory for developers to develop IoT applications and to connect, monitor and also to analyze. It can manage billions of edge devices with the help of bi – directional messaging. It is a flexible cloud platform as a service (PaaS) that supports multiple protocols (AMPQ, MQTT and HTTP). If a device does not support any one of these protocols then incoming and outgoing traffic can be adjusted using the Azure IoT protocol gateway.

Some of the central features include the use of authentication control per device, bidirectional communication between IoT devices using device- to- cloud telemetry data, and the ability to accelerate the deployment and scaling of IoT services by registering and provisioning devices using zero touch. It allows developers to pack their cloud workloads and run them locally on devices using Azure IoT edge. According to prize, it is grouped into 4 categories including free tiers which has up to the high throughput S3 tier, capable of  supporting up to 300,000,000 messages per day. Each tier added by extra units for more throughput. Messages are sent in 4 KB blocks, for billing purposes. A message upto max 512 KB is count as each block.

Azure IoT Edge –

IoT Edge stretches cloud intelligence and analytics to edge devices at a local level. It expands the deployment of AI, Azure services, and custom logic directly to cross-platform IoT devices. With AWS, the IoT when deployed via Azure IoT Edge can run securely and efficiently even when the devices are offline. IoT Edge has extremely low latency and near real-time response potential, thereby optimizing performance between edge and cloud. It works with the AI Toolkit for Azure IoT Edge. This means that, complex AI and ML tasks such as image recognition and complex event processing can easily run without the need to write them in-house. One of the biggest risks for both customers and enterprises is to secure the data. Hence, Azure has consistently been at the forefront of cyber-security as compared to AWS.

Azure IoT central-

Azure IoT Central is built on the enterprise- grade Azure services that allow integration with existing business processes and systems. It is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) for IoT. And also is a fully managed solution. This means is that, the users without any coding or development skills can build production-grade IoT applications. It is very quick to deploy production-grade IoT applications and ensures to eliminate the need for management of infrastructure and hiring developers with specific skills.This makes Azure IoT Central one of the best platforms for IoT development. It is operated with an interface that allows developers to connect, manage and control access to millions of connected products remotely across their entire life-cycle.

Azure IoT Solution Accelerators –

It is a customizable set of templates for common IoT scenarios such as remote monitoring, a connected factory and predictive maintenance. There is a connected device simulation accelerator, which allows developers to test- run their chosen IoT solution with tens of thousands of simulated devices over the development cycle.

AWS IoT-

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the public cloud leader and it has been putting a lot of effort into cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and IoT for a long time now. It provides IoT services through its AWS IoT platform, which comes with a broad set of tools. It offers many solutions that span edge to the cloud, allow developers for most of the use cases over a wide range of devices. These solutions consist of local data collection and analysis, devices and cloud services to store and analyze device data.

The AWS IoT stage is more costly than its adversaries, however in general, AWS is essentially in ahead of the others in terms of market share of the cloud computing space. Devices can communicate with applications running in the cloud over HTTP, MQTT and also WebSockets. This communication can secured with the use of TLS. Device specific SDKs are available for Embedded C, JavaScript, Python, iOS, Android and Arduino Yun. Device shadow is a device that connects with AWS. It maintains the identity and last known state of a specific device and acts as a channel to send and receive messages.

AWS IoT Services-

Amazon FreeRTOS –

Amazon FreeRTOS is a microcontroller operating system. This focuses on allowing easy programming and management of small, low-power edge devices. It is based on the FreeRTOS kernel, an open source operating system for microcontrollers. AWS’ service extends the free version with software libraries which allows easy connections between small and low-power devices (such as appliances, fitness trackers and automobiles) with AWS’ wider set of cloud services, such as AWS IoT Core or to other bigger edge devices running AWS Greengrass.

Microcontrollers (MCUs) are single chips consisting of a simple processor. They have limited memory capacity and compute power and so they can only perform simple, functional tasks. Generally microcontrollers can not run on operating systems with built in functionality to connect to the cloud or local networks. This makes IoT services more challenging. Amazon FreeRTOS was built to solve this problem by allowing to connect the core operating system with software libraries. It makes a secure connection to the cloud easy.

AWS Greengrass –

It is software that securely allows the running of local compute, data caching and messaging for connected devices. Connected devices can run AWS Lambda functions via AWS Greengrass. It also enables the keeping of device data in synchronized and securely communicating with other devices even though not connected to the internet.  This means that Greengrass connected IoT devices can still respond quickly to local events, interact with local resources (via Lambda functions), stay updated and minimize the costs associated with transmitting IoT data to the cloud. Devices can then act locally on the data they are generating in addition to using the cloud for backup storage, management and analytics.

AWS IoT Core –

It is AWS’ overseen cloud stage that allows the clear and secure interaction between connected devices, cloud applications and other devices, the thought being to permit the simple structure of IoT applications, for example, associated home or industrial solutions. Also, IoT Core has the functionality to support billions of devices and trillions of messages. This also includes the processing and routing of those messages to AWS endpoints and other devices. IoT Core also connects to AWS IoT Analytics, which empowers the building of analytics and machine learning models.

Final Words-

The IoT market will grow over the years, and demand for IoT developers and IoT development services will also increase. There are various IoT technologies and platforms are available to build IoT projects. Therefore, it becomes complicated for developers and enterprises to select the best one. So we have compared the AWS IoT and Azure IoT to make things easier.

If you’re interested in migrating to the cloud, then we’re more than happy to help you get started. Solace is there to help you for cloud platform. We believe in benefits of using Microsoft azure and AWS IoT. We will provide the means to bring your company the success it deserves. Contact us for incorporating azure or AWS in a business.