Five advantages of 3decision AWS Quick Start for pharma and biotech
Last year, my Discngine colleagues compiled an article on Five major obstacles of cloud shift in research organizations and how to overcome them based on their experience and expertise. In this article, I will further elaborate on the cloud topic, focusing on our solution for fast cloud software deployment.
Namely, in the era of digital transformation, the ability to deploy new software quickly becomes increasingly important. As Cloud Operation Manager at Discngine, I have observed several challenges when it comes to the deployment of software solutions in life science R&D. These are related to security, integration with the existing IT landscape and fast provisioning, to name a few, which are delaying the access to the crucial software for scientific discoveries.
To overcome these hurdles, we decided to partner up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and release our protein structure database and data management software, 3decision®, in AWS Biotech Blueprint Quick Start. This ready-to-use deployment toolkit allows our customers to streamline the deployment of 3decision® on AWS cloud.
Moreover, the “automated gold-standard deployments on AWS” bring major benefits to pharma and biotech research, as you will find out in the text below.
1. Save Time with Fast Provisioning
One of the AWS Quick Start aims is to eliminate redundant steps during infrastructure provisioning and software installations. With the same goal in mind, we managed to build automated steps for the 3decision Quick Start and thus make it as simple as possible for the installation. In fact, very few input parameters are required for the platform setup, which ultimately lowers the risk of manual errors and speeds up the delivery.
As a result, one can get started in a matter of minutes and access the 3decision platform within just 2 hours.
Quick Start architecture for 3decision on AWS
2. Secure, Flexible and Customized Deployment
Automated installation not only reduces the provisioning time from days (or even weeks) to hours but also ensures high security of the workload deployment. Namely, AWS Quick Start solutions follow the best AWS coding and security practices. Moreover, all the deployment complexity is compressed into a single template that combines the well-defined AWS Cloudformation and our custom workflows.
Therefore, the 3decision Quick Start comes with valuable “Infrastructure as Code” benefits and flexibility, such as:
3decision Quick Start can either be deployed in an existing or a new VPC
Customers can adjust Network (Route 53, SSL and Load Blancer rules) configuration according to their needs
Quick Start codes are Open Source (published under Apache License 2.0) and available on GitHub. It means ops can easily:
Fork the Quick Start to make their own custom adjustmentsOR
Make improvement request in Github repository issues
3. DevOps Friendly
A successful application deployment usually goes through test and UAT environments where key users can test and request adjustments. This is nearly not achievable in a standard “click-oriented” deployment. With 3decision Quick Start, getting UAT/TEST environments integrated into your CI and automated continuous compliance tests is fast and easy.
DevOps and the key users find this valuable since they can assess 3decision’s new features in UAT environments before pushing them to production.
4. Predictable Costs
Cloud infrastructure spending can easily get out of control. That’s why the clear list of all Infrastructure requirements provided beforehand is another advantage of this rapid installation toolkit. On top of that, some of the requirements (e.g., the EC2 shapes and database shapes) can be adjusted during the deployment. Plus, the Quick Start is free with the open-source code – the customer has to pay for the 3decision license and AWS infrastructure.
That way, one can easily predict most of the related infrastructure costs (before and/or after starting the deployment).
5. Easy Platform Upgrades
The AWS QuickStart covers even the post-installation software setup. It accounts for continuous upgrades and improvements to keep pace with the customer demands. Although such continuous delivery is the prerogative of the 3decision SaaS version, the Quick Start ops can still plan to deploy (and automate) 3decision upgrades from a single command line.
Therefore, it’s easy and efficient to maintain the software.
Bonus
I can’t leave without mentioning the SaaS solution – my personal favorite – that offers even more benefits than Quick Start (read “we do the cloud installation and entire maintenance for you”)
The 3decision SaaS deployment additionally has:
Backupingentirely handled for you: although the Quick Start comes with minimal backups enabled, you will still need to manage disaster incidents and disasters recovery to your ops.
Monitoring application and infrastructure: as the 3decision Quick Start is deployed into your owned networks, you are responsible for monitoring the health of the infrastructure and the application.
Always up to date versions: with 3decision SaaS, you benefit from our continuous delivery pipeline and zero downtime efforts to always get the latest version.
To learn more about 3decision and our offers, visit our access page or contact gabriella.jonasson@discngine.com