What does cloud computing mean for the mobility industry?

Put simply, the idea is not to implement computationally intensive services locally in the vehicle or in the mobility app, but to perform them on cloud servers in a similar way to gaming. Only the results of the calculation flow back to the customer, who is then pleased about a fast response of his app or is thrilled by a high-quality visualization. However, to achieve this goal, developers need to do some groundwork and rethink the way software has been developed in the past.

Instead of viewing the entire software as a self-contained block that functions on its own, the first step is to separate out all the sub-functions. This block, known as a monolithic application, is thus broken down into smaller and reusable services. For example, calculating one’s GPS position on a map is a reusable service that can be used in multiple places within an app. A complete decomposition is referred to as a microservice architecture. The usual problems that arise between software developers working on the same software and having to make their microservices available to other developers can be solved with appropriate interface contracts. In other words, a set of rules about who is responsible for the functioning of a microservice and to what extent.

Cognizant Mobility helps to fully exploit the benefits of cloud computing

The advantages of a microservice architecture, whose individual services are not executed locally but in the cloud, clearly outweigh the higher programming effort. This means that all the functions of an app or software in the vehicle can be scaled independently of each other as required. If the map functionality is used very often by customers, only more cloud server power is transferred to this service. If the requirements for an app increase, there is no need to buy a new smartphone or even a new car – only new, more powerful services are provided that are called up by the existing hardware.

Introducing this new Software as a Service (SaaS) paradigm and transforming existing software towards a modern microservice architecture is Cognizant Mobility‘s specialty.

In A Nutshell

• Cloud computing
• Microservice architectures
• SaaS (Software as a Service)
• DevOps
• AWS (Amazon Web Services)
• Microsoft Azure

Our experience makes it possible to analyze existing program code and to extract useful service modules. To do this, the right interfaces must be found in the architecture. In order to be able to implement changes to the software quickly, we rely on Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment – methods that should not be missing in any clean and modern development process. Neither do completely automated tests. In addition, the experts at Cognizant Mobility have already proven several times that full-scale operations can also be taken over, as the necessary experience in hosting cloud computing via AWS (Amazon Web Services) or Microsoft Azure is available.

What does the future hold?

The future will be even more cloud computing oriented than it already is today. We expect that in just a few years, all physical objects will have access to a cloud through some means and no computing power will be running locally. This also realizes another advantage that cloud computing brings with it: Namely, the use of artificial intelligence and data analytics. In most cases, the machine learning processes are too resource-intensive to be used, for example, in the production process. to be able to run on small devices. Via a cloud service that learns from service request to service request, electronic devices or components in the vehicle receive virtually unlimited computing power. In other words, exactly what we expect from a digital, networked future.