Qlik has announced the debut of Qlik Forts, a new hybrid cloud service based on the Qlik Cloud platform to securely extend Qlik's cloud analytics capabilities.
Regardless of whether data is stored on-premises, in a virtual private cloud or a public cloud, Qlik Forts is designed to eliminate the need to move previously siloed local data for cloud analytics. This allows for the benefits of SaaS while meeting governance, jurisdiction or policy requirements.
By delivering a seamless, low latency user experience across any cloud, the company says Qlik Forts will accelerate governed use of more relevant data, a key ingredient in achieving Active Intelligence.
"Organisations aren't experiencing the full potential of cloud analytics since much of their data remains siloed due to regulatory and sovereignty restrictions, data egress, compute costs and orchestration that result in limited user experience," says Qlik chief product officer, James Fisher.
"All these barriers keep organisations from creating more value from their data and realising the benefits of Active Intelligence. With Qlik Forts, we are knocking down every one of these barriers. Unlike other analytics vendors, Qlik never requires customers to move their data to our cloud.
"We can reinforce that flexibility and choice with the ability to deploy Qlik cloud analytics right next to their local data as needed, fully aligning with their existing investments, governance requirements and multi-cloud strategies," he says.
As a hybrid cloud service, Qlik Forts is pre-packaged to run as a virtual appliance on-premises or in any cloud of choice worldwide, including leading platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure. Qlik Forts can reside on an organisation's network and behind the firewall, and all applications, data connections and data files in use stay local to the Fort, supporting any data location requirement possible.
"According to IDC market research, around 80% of organisations currently have data distributed across hybrid, on-premises and cloud environments," says IDC group VP, Analytics and Information Management, Dan Vesset.
"The data estate isn't becoming any less complex in the foreseeable future, and that has real consequences. Organisations challenged by data silos report lower levels of data literacy, less trust in data, and lack of actionable information."
Rutherford Health, Business Improvement and Transformation Manager, John Lopez, says Business Intelligence with Qlik is an essential part of Rutherford Health's strategy to create a high-value healthcare business. Bolstering its efforts with insightful analytics that help drive its decision-making and operational performance to better support patients.
"Qlik Forts will enable a hybrid approach towards our architecture, a core requirement that will provide the security of an on-premises solution with the capability and flexibility of a SaaS product," says Lopez.
"This is crucial to Rutherford, as we deploy core applications across finance, governance and centre care to provide near real-time analytics from multiple sources directly to users, while also enabling oversight of key performance indicators across multiple aspects of our business."
As Qlik Forts is included in Qlik Cloud, all users and administrators have a single point of entry and a consistent experience when accessing data and insights.
"Qlik Forts is the next big leap in hybrid deployments," says Ometis operations director, Alex Walker. "Having one interface to access apps, data and tools seamlessly and securely across on-prem, private cloud, public cloud or Qlik's cloud will bring incredible value to anyone's cloud analytics strategies."