CAI - Case Study - iLink Digital

21st May 2024

by Vinayak Vemula

Real-Time Intelligence, the next evolution of Real-Time Analytics and Data Activator

In today’s data driven world, businesses are increasingly turning to platforms that would help them derive actionable insights faster to enable informed decision-making. The sooner they have access to their data, the faster they can act and gain a competitive edge.

Microsoft Fabric was released for public preview in May 2023 and has been in GA (generally available) since November 2023. It really has been a game changer in how it has brought everything from data, reports, insights to AI under one SaaS platform. Tools that existed earlier in the Azure ecosystem were enhanced, some new concepts brought together to create a holistic platform that has made end to end BI simple and efficient.

Within Fabric, you have the Real Time Analytics experience that houses the Eventhouse (cutting edge database workspace that stores and manages event-based data in KQL databases), Eventstreams, and Data Activator (reflex items).

Customers have been using and leveraging Real Time Analytics in Fabric for multiple use cases across industries from inventory in retail, fraud analytics in finance, route optimization in transportation and logistics, predictive maintenance in manufacturing to name a few.

In the first edition of Real Time Analytics, with Eventstreams, you had the below connectors to get data into a Lakehouse, KQL database or reflex item (Data Activator).

iLink’s experience on Microsoft Fabric Real Time Analytics

At iLink, we had the opportunity to prove out conceptually a near real-time architecture leveraging Microsoft Fabric’s Real Time Analytics for a large Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) retail chain. The problem statement included a scenario to retrieve data in near real time from the point-of-sale (POS) devices in the restaurants and have analytics available in under 10 minutes.

Problem Statement

Their current architecture employed AWS Kinesis data streams routing Json messages to an S3 location using Glue jobs. This existing architecture had a current latency of 30-45 minutes depending on the time of day for volume surges.

The task cut out for Fabric Real Time Analytics was to retrieve data from S3 to begin with as there wasn’t an out of the box connector directly to Kinesis at the time of implementation.

The Solution

As a proof of concept, before the availability of a Kinesis connector, we simulated streaming from S3 into Eventhouse with the below process:

Leveraging the power of shortcuts to external cloud sources like Amazon S3.
Using Spark Structured Streaming notebooks to ingest real time data.
Processing large volume of near real time data in KQL Db.

As a part of the target production implementation, we would be making use of the new kinesis connector that has been released in public preview today (May 21^st).

Existing (As-Is) process

Simplified & Performant Fabric Real-Time Intelligence architected process (production target architecture)

The proof-of-concept solution simplified the entire architecture, and we were able to reduce the latency by over 80% and bring down the end-to-end data latency from 30-45 minutes to under 3 minutes.

Our Production implementation planning is underway.

New: Microsoft Fabric’s Real Time Intelligence

More and more customers are looking to get ahead of the curve by making use of real-time analytics. Due to the availability of various tools, customers tend to use applications that meet their specific needs from an application perspective. Over time this has led to a cacophony of tools only meeting their siloed purpose in the entire ecosystem.

Introducing the next edition of Real Time Analytics in Microsoft Fabric – Real Time Intelligence.

With Real Time Intelligence, Fabric extends the unified SaaS experience bringing the realm of streaming data to all the users in your organization to consume, analyze and act on this data to make faster informed decisions.

All of this is made possible with the Real-Time Hub, which is the one stop shop for all data-in-motion across your organization. It is the OneLake data hub equivalent for real time data. Every Microsoft Fabric tenant is automatically provisioned with the hub, with no extra resources to set up or manage.

Some key features of the hub:

One stop shop for all data-in-motion for the entire organization.
Multiple new connectors to consume data.
The hub (river of data) is never dry.
One copy events/streams for use with multiple real-time analytics engines.
All Microsoft sources of real-time data like Event Hubs Namespace, IoT Hub show up automatically in the hub.

A whole new list of connectors is being made available to simplify data ingestion into the Real-Time hub. To begin with, below are the ones that are supported.

Streaming data from other clouds: Google Pub/Sub, AWS Kinesis
Kafka Clusters: Confluent cloud
Database Change Data Capture (CDC) feeds: Azure SQL CDC, Postgres CDC, Cosmos DB CDC
Microsoft streaming sources: Azure Event Hubs, Azure IoT Hub, CDC sources
System events (Coming soon): both Azure system events (like Azure storage account events) and Fabric system events will be automatically generated and routed into Real-Time hub.

Drawing a parallel to shortcuts within Microsoft Fabric, the new connectors for real time data, makes Real-Time Intelligence the first cross cloud integrated streaming platform to unify real time data across your organization. Google Pub Sub and AWS Kinesis data stream connectors enable seamless data flow with a low-code, no-code experience.

We are excited about – using the new Kinesis connector to stream data directly into Eventhouse. This would eliminate the need for multiple components in the customer implementation architecture mentioned earlier and reduce the latency further. We’ve already tried out the connector in a test environment and with minimal configuration, we were able to stream data into Eventhouse.

Enhanced Eventstream

Event processing already existed with Real Time Analytics in Fabric, as a post processor once you specify a destination in the Enhanced Eventstream. With Real-Time Intelligence, you are now able to derive new events using event processing. This opens the eventstream as a new data source real time streaming which can be leveraged across the organization for multiple uses.

As you can see from the above screenshot, I’ve set up ingestion from a streaming source and used filters to route specific events to different KQL databases. I’ve also been able to do some minor transformations to cast source data into required data types and set up an aggregated derived stream as an output.

This derived stream is now available in Real-Time Hub to be used by other consumers as a stream source and get a jumpstart with their analysis on real-time data.

Real-Time Dashboards

Another promising feature is the Real-Time Dashboard, a user-friendly lightweight interface to create quick exploratory visualizations. It offers a high refresh frequency supporting a range of customization options catered to support low latency time series data.

The following visual types are supported:

Bar Chart
Scatter Chart
Line Chart

Pie Chart
Markdown
Anomaly Chart

Map
Area Chart
Stat/Multi Stat

Column Chart
Time Chart
Funnel Chart

In conclusion, mastering real-time analytics with Microsoft Fabric opens up endless possibilities for organizations to gain actionable insights and drive innovation. By leveraging the powerful capabilities of Real-Time Intelligence, businesses can build scalable, reliable, and high-performance real-time analytics solutions that deliver instant insights and drive business success.

Thank you for joining us on this journey to unlock the power of instant insights with Microsoft Fabric’s Real-Time Intelligence! This is just the beginning, stay tuned for more exciting features coming in this experience in the next few weeks!

Authors

Vinayak Vemula

Data Solutions Architect

Elayaraja Eswaran

Senior Vice President – Data & Analytics

21st May 2024

by Thangaraj Petchiappan

Top Cybersecurity Trends 2024: Insights and Predictions

2024 has already brought formidable challenges in the realm of cybersecurity, requiring organizations to adopt a pragmatic approach to stay vigilant and maintain a robust security posture.

In 2024, organizations are still contending with an explosion of cyber incidents, including ransomware, phishing, and social engineering attacks. As attackers refine their tactics, the organization must embrace emerging trends and technologies to fortify their defenses.

In this comprehensive blog, we will explore top cybersecurity trends 2024, providing strategic insights into emerging cyber threats and actionable recommendations for effectively mitigating them.

Trend #1: Generative AI in Cybersecurity

According to Gartner, “The integration of GenAI into cybersecurity is projected to 30% reduction in false positive rates in threat detection and application security testing by 2027.”

Generative AI has become instrumental in empowering organizations to strengthen their cyber resilience by expediting threat detection, adversarial defense, and incident recovery processes. Unlike AI-native systems that learn based on predefined rules, Generative AI has instantiated the paradigm shift from reactive to proactive cybersecurity, assisting security teams to proactively identify potential vulnerabilities before they materialize, leading to making more informed decisions at their premises.

The leading use case of Generative AI in cybersecurity is crafting a hyper-realistic simulation of potential cyber-attacks in a controlled environment for training purposes, bolstering organizations’ readiness for real-world security incidents. GenAI can also assist in generating natural language threat assessments and incident summaries, speeding up the incident recovery process.

However, Generative AI acts as a double-edged sword in the threat landscape as it holds immense promise for both attackers and defenders. Hence, Gartner recommends that combining AI techniques with GenAI will create more robust systems, mitigating the weaknesses of both technologies and ensuring their responsible implementation.

As per Gartner’s recent survey, 34% of organizations are actively taking steps to mitigate the potential risks of Generative AI by implementing AI application security tools.

Check out our Generative AI Services!

Trend #2: Implementing Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)

Organizations often grapple with identifying overwhelming security vulnerabilities and prioritizing them accordingly despite having a well-curated and sorted list of security exposures. It is crucial to understand the attacker’s perspective to validate the true impact of vulnerability while evaluating the effectiveness of their existing defenses. It is essential to comprehend organizations cannot fix all vulnerabilities, nor can they be entirely certain which vulnerabilities require immediate remediation.

Gartner survey revealed that “By 2026, organizations will experience a staggering threefold decrease in the likelihood of a security breach by prioritizing their security investments based on CTEM”.

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) is a pragmatic cybersecurity approach that consistently prioritizes potential vulnerabilities while balancing modern security realities. Unlike the reactive approach that can only address patchable exposures, CTEM accentuates real-time monitoring and analysis of unpatchable areas of exposure in the attack surface, enabling proactive risk mitigation and swift response to emerging cyber threats.

By conducting regular attack simulations on an organization’s assets, CTEM can effectively identify and address vulnerabilities before attackers exploit them. CTEM enforces continuous security posture remediation rather than point-in-time vulnerability assessment, enabling continual refinement of the organization’s security posture.

Trend #3: Extending the Role of Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Identity and Access Management (IAM) has transitioned from a gatekeeper to the cornerstone in the realm of cybersecurity, ensuring only authorized users have access to an organization’s critical resources. As organizations navigate the complexities of the ever-evolving attack surface, it is crucial to expand the role of IAM to encompass a wide range of responsibilities and capabilities. Hence, organizations started to embrace a paradigm shift towards an “identity-first” approach to security, significantly improving overall security posture.

Gartner recommends security officers prioritize strengthening and leveraging their identity fabric, providing a unified view of identities and access rights. Similarly, incorporating identity threat detection and response mechanisms is crucial to ensure IAM capabilities are better positioned to support overall security posture.

“By 2026, 40% of IAM leaders will be responsible for detecting and responding to IAM-related breaches”.

By integrating Privileged Access Management (PAM), Zero Trust, behavioral biometrics, and decentralized identities into IAM, organizations can achieve a holistic and resilient security posture while empowering users with secure access and fostering trust in the digital ecosystem.

Trend #4: Managing Third-Party Cybersecurity Risk Assessment

In today’s rapidly evolving landscape, managing third-party cybersecurity risk assessment has become critical imperative for organizations. Traditional point-in-time assessment often fail to capture the dynamic nature of cyberthreats. Considering the limitations of point-in-time assessments, organizations are embracing a more proactive and continuous monitoring and risk assessment approach, enabling them to mitigate potential cyber risks before they escalate into full-blown security incidents.

Gartner survey revealed that “Despite the higher investments in third-party cybersecurity risk management (TPCRM), 45% of organizations still suffered third-party business interruptions over the past two years”.

Gartner recommended that “Adopting a resilience-driven and resource-efficient approach into TPCRM helps organizations minimize the impact of third-party incidents.” Furthermore, establishing collaborative relationships with external partners is pivotal to developing mitigation strategies and contingency plans, ensuring critical assets are continuously safeguarded.

Trend #5: Reducing Human Risks with Security Behavior and Cultural Programs

Security professionals realized that the prevailing singular focus on enhancing employees’ security awareness is mainly ineffective in minimizing the security incidents caused by unsecured employee behavior. SBCPs have become one of the top cybersecurity trends that focus on risk reduction and understanding human behavior, fostering behavioral change to tackle the challenges of security fatigue, control friction, and organizational cultures with increased speed and agility.

Looking ahead, Gartner predicts that by 2027, 50% of large enterprises will have implemented human-centric security design practices. It helps to prioritize user experience while maintaining strong security controls, ultimately increasing the adoption of security controls while reducing security-induced friction.

This holistic approach encompasses both traditional practices and emerging capabilities to reduce the risk exposure of human factors while empowering employees, fostering a culture of security awareness, and leveraging data analytics, ensuring a digitally secure culture. However, effective implementation of SBCP requires the adoption of the Gartner PIPE (Practices, Influences, Platforms, Enablers) framework.

Bottom Line

The future of cybersecurity is evolving towards a proactive, intelligence-driven, and user-centric approach. By embracing top cybersecurity trends 2024 and implementing robust security strategies, organizations can gain a competitive advantage in the dynamic threat landscape.

Elevating your security measures is imperative. We are here to provide steadfast support every step of the way. At iLink Digital, we offer cutting-edge AI-driven cybersecurity solutions featuring 360-degree monitoring and round-the-clock support. With our tailored approach, businesses can effectively safeguard their critical assets, bolstering their resilience against emerging threats and enabling informed decision-making to enhance business agility.

Check out iLink’s AI-driven Cybersecurity Services!

Talk to our Cybersecurity Expert!

Thangaraj Petchiappan

Chief Technology & Innovation Officer at iLink Digital

Author

Thangaraj Petchiappan leads the company’s digital transformation initiatives for Fortune 500 clients. He focuses on enhancing infrastructure automation and integrating advanced bot solutions across various industries, including healthcare, oil & gas, manufacturing, telecom, retail, and NPO sectors. As the founder of the AI-Powered Cybersecurity iLab in Texas, he spearheads the development of innovative AI and ML solutions. Additionally, Thangaraj shares his expertise as a keynote speaker, cloud advocate, and coach, offering guidance on digital transformation and technology leadership.

8th May 2024

by iLink Digital

A Detailed Guide to Become a Salesforce MVP

In 2010, Salesforce introduced its MVP program as an annual event to recognize and celebrate Trailblazer experts who mentored others in their Salesforce journey. In the Salesforce landscape, MVP is an abbreviation for Most Valuable Professional, and the title is evaluated every year, and not everyone gets renewed each year. What exactly is the MVP privilege? How can you be one?

In this blog, we will delve into everything that you need to know about becoming a Salesforce MVP.

What is a Salesforce MVP?

Inspired by the sporting term “Most Valuable Player,” Salesforce coined Most Valuable Professionals to accolade experts who highlight leadership qualities. Every year, Salesforce accepts nominations from its community on a global scale. Each MVP status is credible for one year; after that, you must submit the status for renewal. In the class of Salesforce MVP 2024, there are 24 new MVPs and 81 MVPs who got renewed. If you get renewed for five consecutive years, you are initiated into the Salesforce Hall of Fame. It is an award to recognize the consistent efforts of experts who have been giving back to society for a long time.

What is the Process of Salesforce MVP 2024 Nomination?

Submitting the Nominations

At the end of each year, Salesforce opens nominations for MVPs on their official website. You can either nominate yourself or one of your peers whose contributions are notable. The open-door policy allows you to put down the names of anyone who has been displaying excellence in leadership and expertise.

Review by Salesforce Stakeholder and Community

There is a multi-layered review process in place to ensure that all aspects of nominees’ profile are rigorously evaluated. Both Trailblazers community teams and Salesforce employees review the nominees before moving on to the next stage.

Collecting Feedback from Peers

Once the first round of review is completed, the process moves on to collecting feedback from peers. The existing MVPs share their thoughts and insights on the new nominations.

The Final Review by Trailblazer Community Team

The final review was handled by the Trailblazer Community team. In this stage, each nomination goes through a deep evaluation process, checking whether it aligns with the core values of the program. After the last evaluation, the team released the new and renewed Salesforce MVP list for that year.

What Privileges do Salesforce MVPs Receive?

Private Slack Channels
Speaking Engagements
Certification Vouchers
Exclusive Event Invitations
Mentorship and Guidance
Professional Development Opportunities
A Distinct logo and social badges

Do You Posses these MVP Qualities?

Expertise

As a Salesforce MVP, you must be a product expert and evangelist. You will see many MVPs sharing their expertise through Vlogs, podcasts, and blogs. They often answer community questions and are invited to speak at notable events. A true MVP does not gatekeep but instead believes in spreading knowledge to uplift the community.

Leadership

Salesforce MVPs exhibit strong leadership qualities, and they consistently guide the community members in their Salesforce journey. As an MVP in Salesforce and a community leader you are expected to be a part of community conferences, lead a community group, and participate in various programs. Additionally, MVPs must adhere to a strict code of conduct as they are representatives of Salesforce ecosystem.

Generosity

Whether it is organizing events, speaking at conferences, or mentoring trailblazer members, Salesforce MVP dedicates a lot of time for the betterment of the community. Their generous acts directed towards their desire to help others who wish to get the same recognition as them and later work to uplift others.

How to Become a Salesforce MVP?

Although there is no set path, here are some pointers that may help you along the way

Be Fluent in Salesforce: Since it is a leadership title, you must be an expert in Salesforce, and everything related to it. You must hold knowledge of Salesforce development, administration, and architecture. Stay on top of the latest updates and products and understand how they fit the bigger picture.
Be an Active Community Member: Trailblazer has a lot of community groups, make sure that you are active on them. Engaging with your peers, answering questions, initiating programs, preparing guides, etc., are some of the ways to contribute to the community.
Nominate Yourself or Get Nominated: Once you are certain that you have passed the above two criteria, you can nominate yourself. However, if you have left a strong impression on your peers, they might nominate you. While filling out your nomination forms, highlight skills and instances that display your expertise, generosity, and leadership qualities. Your recognition and testimonials can reinforce your candidacy.
Keep the Engagement Going: Maintain your commitment to the ecosystems going through engagement. Be a part of group discussions, community forums and events. The team reviewing your profile must be sure you are an active and helpful member of society.

Conclusion

The Salesforce MVP program is not a popularity contest; it is for people who have been consistently putting in the work toward uplifting the Salesforce community. Every year, Salesforce opens its nomination, ensure that deserving individuals are nominated so that the ecosystem is guided by good leaders. While submitting the nomination, ensure to be detailed and thoughtful and highlight your efforts towards the growth of the Salesforce ecosystem.

At Dazeworks, an iLink Digital Company, our services are backed by four Salesforce MVPs who ensure that our team provides you with the best experience. If your aim is to include or expand the Salesforce within your organization, we have the perfect team for you.

Check out our Salesforce Consulting Services!
Get in touch with our Salesforce Expert!

29th April 2024

by Thangaraj Petchiappan

Threat Detection Investigation Response Mechanisms for Strengthening Cybersecurity

In the ever-evolving landscape of technology innovation, cyber threats pose a significant risk to organizations’ ability to safeguard their critical assets. The attack surface has grown exponentially due to the increased cloud adoption and dispersed workloads. Hence, organizations must implement robust threat detection and incident response (TDIR) mechanisms to minimize the impact of security incidents, ensuring business continuity while maintaining stakeholder’s trust.

This blog aims to elucidate how the robust implementation of threat detection investigation response mechanisms redefines cybersecurity strategies, equipping organizations with the insights and agility to respond swiftly to cyber threats and ensure the safety and security of their systems.

What is Threat Detection Investigation Response?

Threat Detection

Threat detection is the process of identifying, analyzing, and mitigating potential security threats across an organization’s network. It extracts the indicators of compromise (IOC) by implementing continuous monitoring and analysis of network activity through analyzing traffic patterns, system logs, user activity, suspicious files, and endpoints.

Security teams leverage various tools and techniques ranging from basic antivirus solutions to artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to identify complex threats.

According to IBM, “Security Operations Center (SOC) can deal with only 80% of threats; the remaining 20% of threats are likely to slip through, leading to significant damage”.

Threat Investigation

Threat investigation is the process of analyzing and evaluating the impact of threats on an organization to develop an incident response plan. Once the threat is detected, security teams conduct forensic analysis of networks, systems, and applications to identify the root cause of the threats. As a result, organizations can prioritize their investigation and incident handling effectively.

Threat Response

Threat Response involves taking appropriate countermeasures based on detailed analysis to identify and mitigate the threats. It focuses on implementing additional security controls, including intrusion detection systems and multi-factor authentication (MFA), conducting vulnerability assessments, creating awareness among users of best security practices, and minimizing the risk of future attacks.

Steps for Effective Implementation of Threat Detection Investigation Response Mechanisms

#Step 1: Modern Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) for Threat Hunting and Analysis

Unlike traditional reactive security approaches, threat-hunting involves actively seeking out any suspicious and malicious activity within an organization before it causes significant damage. However, it requires a deeper understanding of an organization’s security workflow regarding infrastructure, systems, and network behavior. Effective threat hunting ultimately reduces the time of discovery and the amount of damage by attackers.

Modern SIEM platforms play a crucial role in threat hunting by facilitating real-time analytical capabilities for collecting, analyzing, and correlating security data from disparate sources across endpoints, emails, clouds, apps, and identities. It empowers organizations to take adequate preventive measures by automating incident responses in a timely manner, significantly improving their overall security posture.

# Step 2: Identifying Advanced Threats with User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)

Identifying the threats inside organizations has always been a tedious and time-consuming process. User and Entity Behaviour Analytics (UEBA) helps organizations detect advanced persistent threats by applying behavioral analytics and machine learning algorithms. With the ability to ingest and analyze vast amounts of data from multiple resources such as SIEM, EDR, Network access solutions, threat intelligence frameworks, authentication databases, and ERP, UEBA has already created a comprehensive baseline profile of privileged user behavior.

These solutions provide:

Greater visibility into the activity and behaviors of users and devices.
Flagging the potential malicious threats inside the network in case of suspicious deviations from baseline.
Improving the overall cybersecurity posture while reducing the impact of insider threats.
The UEBA capability in Microsoft Sentinel streamlines analysts’ workloads and offers high-fidelity, actionable intelligence, enabling them to focus on investigation and remediation rather than uncertainty.

# Step 3: Incident Prioritization and Investigation with Microsoft Sentinel

Once the threats and anomalies have been detected, UEBA helps security analysts prioritize potential alerts by assigning a risk score based on the severity of the deviation, the sensitivity of data, the users, and the role in the organization. A high-risk score indicates that an event requires immediate attention, while lower scores require further investigation.

Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native and scalable SIEM platform that integrates threat intelligence frameworks, automation, advanced analytics, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for incident investigation. Azure Sentinel offers deep investigation tools that help you understand the scope and identify the root cause of potential security threats.

Forrester’s Total Economic Impact (TEI) study revealed that Microsoft Sentinel has increased the productivity of security teams, streamlined operations, decreased the organization’s total cost ownership, and achieved a return on investment (ROI) of 234%”.

Explore our Azure Sentinel Services!

# Step 4: Accelerating Automated Incident Response and Remediation with SOAR

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) are critical in automating the incident response and remediation process, enabling organizations to respond to security incidents more effectively and efficiently. SOAR is an integral part of SIEM that focuses on prioritizing incident alerts detected by SIEM platform. SOAR accelerates alert processing and triage by integrating AI and automation, eliminating the need for human intervention.

Key Capabilities of SOAR

Orchestration: Security orchestration integrates various internal and external tools in security systems, such as firewalls, threat intelligence feeds, and endpoint protection through built-in or custom integrations and APIs. Subsequently, SOCs can coordinate their activities with playbooks.
Automation: SOAR executes the automated response while detecting suspicious activity through Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and triggers Network Detection and Response (NDR) to quarantine the compromised endpoint devices.
Response: Like threat intelligence platforms, the centralized dashboard provides a single pane of view for analysts to effectively investigate and resolve incidents by triggering the appropriate playbooks.

Conclusion

iLink SOC, led by InfoSec experts, detects, analyzes, and responds to cybersecurity incidents through vigilant monitoring, using a blend of technology solutions and robust processes. With effective threat detection investigation response mechanisms, organizations minimize the risks & protect critical information, and effectively reduce the cost and complexity of your security infrastructure. iLink’s Microsoft Sentinel as a Service helps you proactively address threats while maintaining your bottom line.

Take the first step towards learning more about Threat Detection Investigation Response services.

Check out our Cybersecurity Services Portfolio!

Thangaraj Petchiappan

Chief Technology & Innovation Officer at iLink Digital

Author

23rd April 2024

by iLink Digital

All You Need to Know About Salesforce Hyperforce

We first heard about Salesforce Hyperforce in 2020; however, its widespread availability is a recent event. So, what is Salesforce Hyperforce, and what does it aim to achieve? Designed as an enhancement platform for the public cloud, Salesforce Hyperforce boasts a lot of potential in terms of scalability, security, efficiency, and growth.
In this blog, we delve into everything you need to know about Salesforce Hyperforce and its capabilities for your business.

What is a Public Cloud?

A Public Cloud is an infrastructure that is owned and operated by a cloud service provider. Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services are some of the biggest cloud service providers in the world. These services allow users to share computing services such as networks, storage, and services with other users through the Internet.

By including public cloud infrastructure in Hyperforce, Salesforce can focus more on refining and innovating products, expanding its service portfolio, and boosting its customer experience.

What is Salesforce Hyperforce?

Salesforce Hyperforce is an infrastructure architecture that combines the foundation of different clouds and enables Salesforce to scale securely and rapidly through public cloud partners. It is a Salesforce re-architecture designed to provide a more robust scalable and powerful platform to support customers’ growth and success. Hyperforce empowers Salesforce customers to deploy Salesforce apps and services more securely from anywhere.

One of the main advantages of Hyperforce is its 100% backward compatibility, meaning Salesforce developers don’t have to worry about any changes in apps while being moved to Hyperforce.

What Are the Key Features of Hyperforce?

Salesforce Compatibility:

If you are a Salesforce user, integrating Hyperforce will be a cakewalk. It seamlessly works with all apps, customizations, and integrations within Salesforce. Furthermore, backward compatibility allows you to future-proof all the apps to mitigate the probability of any disruptions

High Scalability:

With technologies, business processes, and trends constantly changing, companies are looking to invest in solutions that can scale with these changes. Hyperforce has a flexible infrastructure that allows you to leverage scalable features.

Globally Compliant:

With Hyperforce you can store the data locally while ensuring global compliance. You get to select where the data will be stored so that you can comply with the regulatory requirements of that industry or region.

Robust Security:

Salesforce is one of the most trusted software, and security is at the core of every new release. Hyperforce comes with background functions that allow you to safeguard the integrity of your data.

Why Was Salesforce Hyperforce Created?

Salesforce Hyperforce was created in response to the growth demands of digitizing and increasing complexities of the business world. The current architecture of Salesforce deals with many challenges due to factors including data growth, remote work, data residency rules, and global distribution. Hyperforce allows Salesforce to stay updated with major CRM companies, as Salesforce customers can now use public cloud infrastructure to store their Salesforce cases.

Before Hyperforce, each Salesforce instance had to be stored in the Salesforce data center. Hyperforce gives them the flexibility to choose where they want the instances to be stored, which solves issues regarding scalability and location.

Moreover, many customers faced issues complying with geographical data regulations, which led to challenges in merging data and acquiring business from different regions. Asynchronous queues were also a limitation, as multiple users shared the same server. However, with public cloud infrastructure, customers no longer must consider others’ usage while planning and executing projects.

Why Should You Consider Migrating to Hyperforce?

Flexibility in Data Residency

Customers can select the geographic location where they want the application to be stored. This is useful for organizations subject to strict data storage or industry-specific regulations. Hyperforce allows businesses to align Salesforce deployments with regulatory frameworks, ensuring compliance and instilling trust and confidence among customers and stakeholders.

Accessibility into the Global Market

Hyperforce distributes data across various regions, facilitating global accessibility. It also ensures that users worldwide experience high performance and low latency while engaging with Salesforce applications. Hyperforce’s global reach also ensures consistent access to crucial CRM functionalities and improves customer experience.

Boosted Performance and Scalability

The decentralized architecture of Hyperfornce allows scalability while ensuring optimal performance. Customers can harness the cloud’s scalability and elasticity without worrying about the infrastructure. Despite the increase in data volume and the number of customers, performance stays steady throughout the changes. This means applications can deal with more data-intensive and complicated operations.

Quick and Easy Adaptability

Hyperforce allows companies to easily pivot to new opportunities. Whether they want to enter a new market, release a new product, or restructure their process, adaptability comes easy with Hyperforce. The solution is built to provide agile and future-proof CRM solutions.

Robust Security

Hyperforce improves the overall security structure of deployments with features including advanced access controls, end-to-end encryption, and a distributed security model. The solution is boasted of built-in-trust with zero-trust principles and least privileged control. Hyperforce restricts users to different access levels to customer data. It is a strong measure towards safeguarding sensitive information against misconfiguration and errors.

What Does Hyperforce Deliver?

Local Data Storage

Hyperforce helps customers store their data in a particular location and helps them cater to regulatory guidelines for their industry, region, and company.

Backward Compatibility

All Salesforce apps, integrations, and customizations can seamlessly run on Hyperforce. This will enable a more cohesive and streamlined user experience irrespective of the cloud location.

Built-in Trust

The security architecture of Hyperforce leverages encryption to safeguard data. It implies that data is encrypted when it is stored and transferred, making sure that it remains secure and private.

Performance at B2C and B2B Scale

Hyperforce runs on a public cloud infrastructure that enables users to deploy resources easily and quickly, reducing the time needed for implementation significantly.

Conclusion

Hyperforce is a new Salesforce architecture that allows customers to enjoy greater scalability, flexibility, and resilience while ensuring optimal performance. By harnessing the elasticity of public cloud infrastructure, Hyperforce allows Salesforce to support innovations and expertise and future-proof the platform for a year.

Looking to migrate to Hypeforce? We are the right team to guide you through the process. At Dazeworks, an iLink Digital Company, we are fluent in everything Salesforce and can help you efficiently migrate to Hyperforce and enjoy its capabilities the most.

Check out our Salesforce Services!
Please Feel Free to Reach Us!

2nd April 2024

by Vedarethina Sozhan

How are Power platforms and AI copilots Empowering Digital Transformation?

In today’s fast-paced digital era, businesses are consistently on the lookout for cutting-edge solutions to streamline operations, boost productivity, and offer unmatched customer experiences. Microsoft’s Power Platform is leading the charge in this digital transformation journey, enhanced further by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence through AI-driven copilots. These innovations are more than mere tools; they are agents of transformation, enabling businesses to effortlessly tackle the challenges of the digital world with unmatched precision and effectiveness. This blog delves into how the dynamic collaboration between Power Platforms and AI copilots is reshaping the business operations landscape and establishing unprecedented benchmarks in digital innovation.

Unleashing Efficiency with Power Platforms

Microsoft’s Power Platform is a suite of applications, connectors, and a data platform (Dataverse) that provides a rapid development environment for building custom apps for business needs. It includes Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Copilot Studios, each designed to fulfill specific functions within the business ecosystem—from data analytics to app development, workflow automation, and intelligent chatbots.

Power BI: Transforming Data into Insights

Power BI turns data into analytical insights, enabling businesses to make informed decisions. With its robust data visualization capabilities, it allows users to create interactive reports and dashboards, uncovering trends and metrics that drive strategic business actions.

Power Apps: Democratizing App Development

Power Apps empowers users to build custom applications without extensive coding knowledge. This democratization of app development accelerates the delivery of solutions tailored specifically to the market’s business requirements.

Power Automate: Streamlining Workflows

Power Automate automates repetitive tasks and integrates systems and data, freeing up valuable time for employees to focus on more strategic initiatives. This automation of workflows leads to increased efficiency and a reduction in human error.

Copilot Studio: Enhancing Customer Engagement

Copilot Studio allows businesses to create powerful chatbots using a guided, no-code graphical interface. These bots can converse with customers or employees, providing immediate responses, guidance, and support.

AI-Driven Copilots

The integration of AI copilots into the Power Platform is a game-changer. These intelligent assistants enhance the platform’s capabilities by providing context-aware guidance and automating repetitive tasks, generating insights from data, and even creating content. Copilots in the Power Platform context help streamline workflows, making it easier for businesses to implement complex solutions.

● Enhanced App Development and User Experience: In Power Apps, AI copilots can suggest enhancements and functionalities, streamlining the app development process. They can also improve user experience by making apps more intuitive and responsive to user needs.

● Intelligent Automation and Insights: AI copilots in Power Automate can predict users’ needs and suggest automation workflows that can save time and resources.

● Revolutionizing Customer Interactions: With Power Virtual Agents, AI copilots can train bots to understand and respond more effectively to customer queries. This not only improves customer service efficiency but also ensures a more personalized and engaging user experience.

Power Platforms & AI Copilots: Use Cases Across Industries

The combination of Power Platform’s versatility and the intelligence of copilots is transforming business processes across industries.

Healthcare Sector

In the healthcare sector, combining the versatility of Power Platform with the intelligence of AI copilots has the potential to transform patient care and administrative operations. Hospitals can utilize Power Apps to create tailored applications that streamline patient intake processes, simplifying registration and data collection. AI copilots integrated into this system can then analyze the data in real time, pinpointing high-risk cases for immediate attention. Additionally, Power Automate can send timely alerts to medical staff based on AI insights, ensuring swift administration of critical care. This integration not only enhances workflow efficiency but also greatly improves patient outcomes by equipping healthcare professionals with the tools to make quick, informed decisions.

Retail Industry

Retail companies can leverage the adaptability of Power Platform and the intelligent guidance of copilots to enhance their inventory management systems. By integrating Power Automate for workflow automation and AI copilots for predictive analytics, retailers can anticipate stock needs with remarkable accuracy, ensuring optimal inventory levels at all times. This transformation can not only streamline operations but also significantly reduce waste and improve customer satisfaction by guaranteeing product availability.

Banking & Financial Institutes

An advanced AI system can help banks enhance fraud detection across all transactions. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, this system continuously analyzes transaction patterns and identifies anomalies deviating from typical customer behavior, signaling potential fraud. Additionally, banks can employ AI-driven insights to elevate customer service and provide personalized banking experiences. The combination of AI-driven insights and automation can lead to a significant reduction in fraud cases, enabling the bank to detect and prevent fraudulent activities more efficiently than ever before.

Empowering Digital Transformation

The collaboration between Microsoft’s Power Platform and AI-driven copilots represents more than a technological advancement. It signifies a paradigm shift in how businesses approach digital transformation. By harnessing the power of this dynamic duo, organizations can streamline their operations, enhance productivity, and provide personalized customer experiences like never before. Power Platforms and AI copilots emerge as essential allies on the path to digital excellence, enabling businesses to thrive in the digital era with agility and confidence.

Seize the Digital Transformation opportunity with iLink Digital. Talk to our PowerApps Consulting Services experts today!

Vedarethina Sozhan

Senior Technical Architect

About Author

Veda brings extensive proficiency in Microsoft technologies, including Office 365, Power Platform, Dynamics 365, Sharepoint, and Azure services. With profound experience in software development and architecture, he spearheads the development of cutting-edge frameworks at iLink Digital’s DEX Labs. Specializing in high-stakes customer projects and intricate technology deployments, he collaborates closely with pre-sales teams and contributes his expertise to crafting proof of concepts for clients.