Navigating the Evolving Horizon: Trends and Security Measures in Software Development
CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Palanivel Saravanan, VP, Cloud Engineering Leader, Oracle India
- Can you shed some light on the new technologies shaping the future of software development?
The software development landscape is rapidly evolving with technologies like AI, blockchain, AR, VR, and quantum computing coming to the forefront. AI and ML are making applications smarter, while Quantum Computing enhances complex problem-solving and security. AR and VR are transforming learning experiences. Moreover, DevOps, CI/CD, IoT, and cybersecurity tech are essential for businesses to stay relevant. There has been significant growth in cloud adoption. Cloud adoption is crucial for innovation and competitiveness, with a PwC survey indicating a potential 92% profitability boost. Modern businesses that are not embracing the cloud, are unable to keep pace with the evolving needs of the customers in their respective industries. They tend to miss innovation, agility, and competitiveness. Hence, adapting to these changes is key for developers to thrive in the dynamic tech environment.
- What are the latest trends in securing software applications, and how can developers integrate robust security measures into their development processes?
Cloud databases have evolved significantly in recent years with enhanced scalability, security, and performance. This evolution provides businesses with increased flexibility to adapt resources to changing workloads in today’s dynamic environment. In fact, improved global distribution capabilities reduce latency and enhance redundancy, enabling data storage and access from various regions. Many cloud databases now support multiple data models, including relational, NoSQL, and graph databases. Businesses are increasingly transitioning core systems to the cloud due to enhanced security features and compliance certifications that simplify regulatory adherence and data protection. The integration of AI and machine learning services aids in extracting valuable insights from data, empowering businesses to effectively harness data, enhance application performance, and streamline operations.
Developers can ensure robust security in their development process by fostering a security-first mindset and approach. This can be achieved with regular security training sessions, integrating security-focused code reviews, following secure coding standards, and frequently scanning and updating dependencies. They can also look at implementing automated testing tools, covering static analysis, dynamic analysis, and interactive application security testing. Secure data handling practices, including encryption, should be applied to protect information both in transit and at rest. Additionally, strong access controls, multi-factor authentication, and a proactive approach to regularly updating software and libraries contribute to a secure development environment.
- How has data techniques evolved over the years? How is data being handled, stored, and optimized now? Please specify with an example
Today, by harnessing the power of digital transformation, businesses are providing the best experience to their customers with the cloud. In the past few years, cloud databases have significantly evolved; from providing greater scalability to improved security, and performance, cloud solutions now have become more reliable, secure, and efficient. Like we see greater scalability in the Cloud database nowadays that allows businesses to adjust resources as per their unique needs. This enables them to handle varying workloads. The improved global distribution capabilities provide data storage and accessibility from various regions, improving latency. Several cloud databases now support multiple data models, such as relational, NoSQL, and even graph databases. We have seen Hybrid and multi-cloud database solutions emerging, which enables organizations to combine on-premises and multiple cloud providers seamlessly. Enhanced security features empower businesses to secure data, integrations of AI and machine learning services, help businesses extract more insights from their data.
Managing data, storage, and optimization is an ongoing and intricate process requiring meticulous planning, continuous monitoring, and adaptability to evolving business needs and data volumes. Organizations are faced with the challenge of efficiently and cost-effectively storing ever-growing data online while complying with increasingly strict regulatory and business requirements for data retention and protection. Our focus is to empower customers to leverage the cloud’s agility, flexibility, and scalability without compromising the security of their data or that of their customers. We embed security into all our cloud solutions at the architectural level, ensuring comprehensive protection across the entire stack and establishing a platform that is inherently secure.
For example, we have collaborated with Applied Invention to design an open standard for network and data security. This initiative aims to assist organizations in safeguarding data in distributed IT environments. Our joint effort focuses on creating an open, Zero-Trust Packet Routing (ZPR) standard, designed to help organizations prevent unauthorized access or use of their data while minimizing obstacles for legitimate activities.
- How does Oracle’s MySQL HeatWave Lakehouse address the challenges associated with movement of data to another database. How does it simplify complexities and reduce costs for customers?
At Oracle, we remain committed to providing our customers with flexibility and scalability that they expect in cloud solutions. We’ve made some significant enhancements to MySQL HeatWave to meet the evolving needs of customers at Oracle Cloud World, Las Vegas. These updates include features such as support for a vector store, generative AI, in-database machine learning, improvements to MySQL Autopilot, new HeatWave Lakehouse functionalities, JavaScript support, accelerated JSON query capabilities, and the introduction of new analytic operators. The vector store, currently in private preview, allows customers to leverage large language models with proprietary data, ensuring more accurate insights. With generative AI and vector store, users can interact with MySQL HeatWave in natural language and efficiently search documents in various formats within HeatWave Lakehouse.
These enhancements aim to address customer data, analytics, and AI requirements, building on MySQL HeatWave’s contributions of real-time analytics, automated machine learning, lakehouse capabilities, and Multicloud support. The addition of the vector store and generative AI brings the power of large language models to users, providing a user-friendly approach to interact with enterprise data for precise answers. The in-database machine learning ensures a seamless process with an automated model training pipeline, eliminating the need to transfer data externally. Customers can securely apply machine learning for training, inference, and data explanation directly within MySQL HeatWave.
- Please share how Indian customers can benefit from MySQL HeatWave Lakehouse in terms of performance and scalability?
MySQL HeatWave offers expanded capabilities for customers seeking analytics, transaction processing, machine learning, and generative AI across diverse data types and sources. These capabilities apply to both MySQL-compatible and non-MySQL workloads, providing a comprehensive solution to address varied needs.
In India, our robust customer relationships have yielded impressive outcomes, as seen with Noorisys Technologies. During their expansion, they required an enterprise-grade database solution. Initially built on MySQL Database Community Edition, they transitioned to MySQL HeatWave on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) for a scalable service delivery solution. This strategic upgrade provided Noorisys with always-on security, fast performance, on-demand scalability, and high availability. This move empowered them to expand services globally, offering secure and cost-effective data management and storage services. Similar success stories within our partner ecosystem in India showcase how MySQL HeatWave enables businesses to scale, enhance agility, improve efficiency, and achieve substantial growth.
