圣诞节快要来了,可我就是

It’s the end of the year and the holidays are almost upon us. The US recently celebrated Thanksgiving and with Christmas coming next, we look forward to giving and receiving gifts. Shamefully, I admit I sometimes pay more attention to the gifts I hope to receive.

这是年底，假期快到了。 美国最近庆祝了感恩节，下一个圣诞节即将来临，我们期待着送礼物。 可耻的是，我承认有时我会更加注意我希望收到的礼物。

Fortunately, most people knows it’s better to give than to receive. And I’m hoping those doing the giving are solutions developers who’ll give me the features I want to see in cloud apps.

幸运的是，大多数人都知道给予比接受更好。 我希望提供帮助的是解决方案开发人员，他们将为我提供我想在云应用程序中看到的功能。

Early users of such apps were very forgiving in their requirements for the cloud. They were happy accessing low cost business solutions without the need for extensive infrastructure. As the industry matures, many features we considered basic in pre-cloud environments will become the norm.

此类应用程序的早期用户对云的需求非常宽容。 他们很乐意访问低成本的业务解决方案，而无需广泛的基础架构。 随着行业的成熟，我们认为预云环境中的许多基本功能将成为常态。

That’s what this post and the next is about. I’ll list specific features I want my cloud solution vendors to support in their apps. In my view, these features are needed before large corporate customers facing compliance and regulatory concerns integrate your solution into their business environments. And it’s those organizations with thousands of users who are the real money makers for cloud vendors—just ask salesforce.com and others who target this market.

这就是这篇文章和下一篇文章的内容。 我将列出我希望云解决方案供应商在其应用程序中支持的特定功能。 我认为，在面临合规性和法规问题的大型企业客户将您的解决方案集成到其业务环境之前，需要使用这些功能。 正是那些拥有成千上万用户的组织才是云供应商真正的赚钱者，只需询问salesforce.com以及其他瞄准该市场的人。

The features I discuss are focused at the application level where I spend most of my time with clients. These features include:

我讨论的功能主要集中在应用程序级别，我将大部分时间都花在与客户上。 这些功能包括：

• local backup of critical application data关键应用程序数据的本地备份
• offline data viewing离线数据查看
• data integration tools数据整合工具
• advanced offline features and functionality先进的离线功能
• audit trail of system and application changes系统和应用程序更改的审核跟踪
• mobile integration移动整合

关键应用程序数据的本地备份 (Local Backup of Critical Application Data)

I’m sure you regularly back up your customers’ data. Ensuring customer data integrity is a critical feature all cloud vendors must. But many clients find it hard to trust that their data will be available in the event of an incident. We’ve been burned before. We want the ability to download our data to a local backup in case your app or the internet is unavailable when we need it. Or to address an even worse case scenario—what if you go out of business?

我确定您会定期备份客户的数据。 确保客户数据完整性是所有云供应商都必须具备的一项关键功能。 但是，许多客户发现很难相信一旦发生事件，他们的数据将可用。 我们已经被烧死了。 我们希望能够将我们的数据下载到本地备份中，以防您需要时无法使用您的应用程序或互联网。 还是要解决更糟的情况-如果您倒闭怎么办？

What does that backup give us? I call it a “data insurance policy.” It lets us sleep well at night knowing we will never truly lose our data even if you lose your data center. It also ensures that we have access to our data if our internet connection goes down or your app is unavailable. We can still look up our client’s data that we store in your app using the latest backup version.

那个备份能给我们带来什么？ 我称之为“数据保险政策”。 它使我们能够在晚上睡个好觉，因为即使您丢失了数据中心，我们也永远不会真正丢失数据。 如果互联网连接中断或您的应用不可用，它还可以确保我们可以访问我们的数据。 我们仍然可以使用最新的备份版本来查找存储在您的应用中的客户数据。

Finally, a local backup gives me the flexibility to transfer my business process to another vendor if you ever fail me. Maybe you want stronger handcuffs on your clients, but you earn more of my loyalty by delivering high quality service than making it costly for me to transfer to another service provider.

最后，如果您使我失败，则本地备份使我可以灵活地将业务流程转移给其他供应商。 也许您希望为您的客户提供更好的保护，但是通过提供高质量的服务，您可以获得更多的忠诚度，而不是让我转移到另一家服务提供商处付出高昂的代价。

I’m realistic enough to understand that having a local backup does not mean that it will be restored in the event of a loss or error. I’d love to have that but I understand the complexity of designing cloud apps to support this. Most cloud vendors I’ve reviewed store the data for all customers in a collective data store with a customer ID controlling data segregation. Any single restore would potentially impact all customers’ data.

我很现实地理解，拥有本地备份并不意味着在丢失或发生错误时将其还原。 我很乐意拥有它，但是我了解设计支持此功能的云应用程序的复杂性。 我查看过的大多数云供应商都将所有客户的数据存储在一个集体数据存储中，其中客户ID控制着数据分离。 任何一次还原都可能会影响所有客户的数据。

离线数据查看 (Offline Data Viewing)

One of the key benefits provided by cloud apps is that users like me don’t have to install anything on their laptops to use the app’s features. All we need is an internet connection and a browser. That’s great from a system management and infrastructure perspective, but sometimes I want to see my critical data without having to jump on the internet to access your app or my data.

云应用程序提供的主要优势之一是，像我这样的用户无需在笔记本电脑上安装任何东西即可使用该应用程序的功能。 我们需要的只是一个互联网连接和一个浏览器。 从系统管理和基础架构的角度来看，这很棒，但是有时候我希望查看我的关键数据而不必跳到互联网上来访问您的应用程序或数据。

There are often times when I simply want to look up a client account number or some other piece of customer data. If I’m not in an area with internet access, I’m out of luck. I want a utility feature that downloads critical data to my local server or laptop that I can access at any time. You provided part of this with my local backup.

很多时候，我只是想查找客户帐号或其他客户数据。 如果我不在可以上网的区域，那我就不走运了。 我想要一个实用程序功能，可以将关键数据下载到我可以随时访问的本地服务器或便携式计算机上。 您为此提供了部分本地备份。

A key consideration here is to clearly communicate to users that offline viewing is truly “view only.” Changes cannot be made offline and then automatically reflected when they next log into the cloud app via the internet. Of course, this ignores the capability of HTML5 or other development techniques where you could build offline features with online integration at the next login, but I’d make that a premium feature. We’ll discuss it in the next post.

这里的一个关键考虑因素是要向用户明确传达离线观看是真正的“仅观看”。 更改不能离线进行，然后在下次通过互联网登录云应用程序时自动反映出来。 当然，这会忽略HTML5或其他开发技术的功能，在这些功能下，您可以在下次登录时通过在线集成来构建脱机功能，但我想将其作为高级功能。 我们将在下一篇文章中讨论。

If you really want to get my attention, give me a utility feature that allows me to view my data in a user friendly format on my local platform. As a developer, you already know how to pull data out of a MySQL database and view data. But your customer doesn’t always know how to do this or have easy access to anyone that can do it for them. They’re dependent on you for application data.

如果您真的想引起我的注意，请给我提供一项实用程序功能，该功能使我可以在本地平台上以用户友好的格式查看数据。 作为开发人员，您已经知道如何从MySQL数据库中提取数据并查看数据。 但是您的客户并不总是知道如何执行此操作，也不总是可以轻松地与可以为他们执行此操作的任何人联系。 它们依赖于您的应用程序数据。

Give customers a data extract wizard that pulls data from your app and puts it in a standard format such as CSV or Excel—something a typical business person can understand. You can save yourself a lot of development time by providing data in an Excel rather than custom report formats. Provide a standard layout and format of your application data, document the layout and data model in your Help section and let the customer tweak formatting in Excel.

为客户提供一个数据提取向导，该向导可从您的应用程序中提取数据，并将其以CSV或Excel等标准格式进行处理，这是一般业务人员可以理解的。 通过以Excel而不是自定义报告格式提供数据，可以节省很多开发时间。 提供应用程序数据的标准布局和格式，在“帮助”部分中记录布局和数据模型，并让客户在Excel中调整格式。

Don’t forget that an offline data viewing utility is another chance for you to brand your app and remind customers how critical your app is to their operation. Place your brand on the form so they always remember it’s your app they’re using. Make it a premium feature to provide more focused reports with less branding. Internet customers have grown accustomed to seeing advertising on free apps and expect less in-your-face branding when they pay for a premium feature.

不要忘记，离线数据查看实用程序是为您的应用打上品牌并提醒客户您的应用对其操作至关重要的另一个机会。 将您的品牌放在表格上，以便他们始终记住这是他们正在使用的应用程序。 使其成为一项高级功能，可以以更少的品牌提供更具针对性的报告。 互联网客户已经越来越习惯于在免费应用程序上看到广告，并且期望他们在购买高级功能时会减少面部表情。

资料整合 (Data Integration)

As organizations move more business processes to the cloud using multiple vendors, data is spread out and frequently becomes redundant. The more cloud vendors in use, the more places customer information is stored. Changing a customer address in one cloud app requires changing it in all apps.

随着组织使用多个供应商将更多的业务流程转移到云中，数据分散并且经常变得多余。 使用的云供应商越多，存储的客户信息越多。 在一个云应用程序中更改客户地址需要在所有应用程序中更改它。

Say that I want an API that lets me pull data from your app to use in my environment. I also want an API that lets me load changes to customer data via batch processing if necessary.

假设我想要一个API，该API可让我从您的应用中提取数据以在我的环境中使用。 我还需要一个API，该API允许我在必要时通过批处理将更改加载到客户数据中。

It would be nice if your app met all the requirements for supporting customers, but it’s unlikely. So we need other systems and applications to meet our needs. Provide a tool that enables us to link the data among these disparate systems so I don’t waste time manually synchronizing customer data.

如果您的应用程序满足支持客户的所有要求，那就太好了，但这不太可能。 因此，我们需要其他系统和应用程序来满足我们的需求。 提供一种工具，使我们能够在这些不同的系统之间链接数据，这样我就不会浪费时间手动同步客户数据。

I know it’s a fantasy request, but there are EDI standards for passing data among organizations in many industries. If my cloud vendor conformed to those standards or a similar type of standard, they would rate much higher when I evaluated them at the time of reviewing any RFP.

我知道这是一个空想，但在许多行业的组织之间都有EDI标准可以传递数据。 如果我的云供应商符合这些标准或类似类型的标准，则在我审查任何RFP时对其进行评估时，它们的评分会更高。

Placing specific service level agreements around any external access to your app’s data is critical. Clients should not be able to bombard your server with frequent data requests slowing down the responsiveness of the app for everybody. This is a premium feature and you would want to segment your premium clients to servers that can handle that load. Customers should pay more for this open data access and it could be a key point in your favor when courting new clients.

在对应用程序数据的任何外部访问周围放置特定的服务级别协议至关重要。 客户端不应使用频繁的数据请求来轰炸您的服务器，从而降低了应用程序对所有人的响应速度。 这是一项高级功能，您可能希望将高级客户端细分为可以处理该负载的服务器。 客户应该为这种开放数据访问支付更多的费用，这可能是吸引新客户时对您有利的一个关键点。

As with all industries, the cloud computing industry is maturing and more features will be considered basic and necessary for cloud vendors to maintain competitiveness with peers. There are several features I consider to be basic to any software application, cloud-based or otherwise. I anxiously await the day when all cloud solution providers agree with me. Until then, I’ll keep adding to my wish list.

与所有行业一样，云计算行业正在日趋成熟，更多功能被认为是云供应商保持与同行竞争的基本和必要条件。 我认为对于基于云的软件应用程序或其他基于云的软件应用程序来说，有几项基本功能。 我焦急地等待着所有云解决方案提供商都同意我的一天。 在那之前，我将继续添加到我的愿望清单中。

In the next post, I’ll continue this discussion while expanding on what is neccessary for offline capabilities. We’ll also identify how cloud apps should support my need to audit changes to data to meet regulatory requirements. And we’ll discuss how mobile platforms should be integrated as their numbers grow and become the platform of choice for many organizations.

在下一篇文章中，我将继续讨论，同时扩展脱机功能所必需的内容。 我们还将确定云应用程序应如何满足我对数据更改进行审核以满足法规要求的需求。 我们将讨论随着移动平台数量的增长如何整合移动平台，并成为许多组织的首选平台。

After considering my list, what do you wish your customers knew before they jumped on the cloud with your app? Is there a minimal set of expectations or education that you wish new clients had? Let me know how you would like to educate your customers prior to subscribing to reduce support time and raise customer service scores. I look forward to your feedback.

考虑了我的清单后，您希望客户在使用您的应用程序进入云之前知道什么？ 您希望新客户对我们有最低限度的期望或教育吗？ 让我知道您想如何在订购前教育您的客户，以减少支持时间并提高客户服务分数。 期待您的反馈。

翻译自: https://www.sitepoint.com/my-christmas-wish-list/

圣诞节快要来了,可我就是