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Businesses are no longer debating cloud services vs on-premises server rooms, that debate has shifted to which platform should we adopt and why!
And when it comes to software development it’s one of those decisions that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
No-one wants to start down a path and end up pivoting early in the process. Of course, for early stage development we remain agile and open to change, but the less we need to adjust the fundamental tech stack the better, for everyone on the team!
And today with the big three public cloud vendors, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud you’re committing to an Infrastructure-as-a-service (Iaas), a full suite of services that are ideally adopted as a whole - at least whilst getting to minimum viable product (MVP).
Healthy competition has driven down cloud costs and pushed innovation forward at a rapid rate, as this Iaas market, pegged to be worth a total of $49.1 billion in 2020 continues to build.
It’s known that AWS has been dominant since it entered the sector in 2006, and Microsoft with its Azure offering has strong popularity with big businesses that have existing relationships and existing systems with the same vendor, giving opportunity for integration.
So, what attracted us to the underdog - why did Opologic partner with Google? Here are a few of the key reasons below.
A few years back we started playing with dialogflow, Googles natural language platform. We could see real value in a voice-controlled system within the medical industry and were able to quickly piece together a voice activated surgical technique concept, with just a Google Home Hub, dialogflow and Firebase.
It sparked real passion within the team around the Google Cloud Platform. We could finally capitalise on machine learning and AI capabilities, to explore the future benefits of these evolving technologies, without underlying system complexity. We’ve since used the ML Kit extensively inside Scan, our mobile stock counting application.
When we started building out custom software systems for medical device manufacturers, we needed to address security – specifically the building HIPAA aligned solutions. The measures that GCP takes to ensure compliance with numerous globally recognised security and data privacy standards is a testament to their commitment in meeting todays healthcare technology needs.
We have coupled together numerous google cloud technologies to build HIPAA aligned solutions for our clients.
At Opologic we build ‘people’ software, not ‘business’ software. Ultimately, it’s the people inside the business that need to benefit from the solution, and the business benefit should come as a by-product of that – not the other way around.
For example, with GCP we’ve been able to tap into the power of Google maps to provide real-time directions and autocomplete fields when inputting locations. It’s quick and easy to implement via API, and these tools can offer a lot of value to the user.
Googles mobile UI framework has enabled us to build natively compiled iOS and Android applications with speed and ease. Dedicated Flutter Plugins for Google API services simplify the development and allow us to build and test dedicated mobile apps as quickly as possible.
Flutter and Firebase work hand in hand with each other and our development team continue to gain a depth of experience in the Google ecosystem. They are a perfect match for each other!
You can’t debate the value of the Google Cloud Platform without mentioning a number of the core products available within the platform, such as Firestore their latest incarnation of a NoSQL database, Cloud Storage which can store and share content such as images, audio and video, and Authentication which can manage secure user sign in capabilities.
There are clearly trade-offs in choosing any Iaas including the GCP, but for us to date we have been able to mitigate a lot of these through strategic planning and implementation of our applications. What we’ve gained in partnering with Google has far outweighed any infrastructure limitations and we’re looking forward to exploring more of the platform as our services and demands grow.
Opologic are a Google Cloud Partner, that develop software for the medical device industry. Current solutions include Scan, a stock counting system, and Case, a mobile app that helps reps simplify the process of surgical case management.
Our team also provide decades of industry experience to deliver custom software solutions that can support your exact business critical needs.
If you’d like to discuss working with us then please contact us here
