What is our primary use case?
We only use the engine, and we have implemented our solution around Camunda Cloud.
We have a lot of use cases. In the past, the major use case was related to infrastructure ordering. If users wanted to onboard their applications to the cloud, the whole process was run by us. They would go to the ITSM tool that we have, and from there, the whole process of onboarding the application was run by us. For example, if you required certain access, all these accesses were provided by us. So, mainly, it was related to the infrastructure processes where you order something and have to talk to AD, Exchange, or other kinds of infrastructure products and systems you have in the company.
How has it helped my organization?
When I compare the old legacy platform to the current one, the number of incidents has reduced massively. Our platform is much more stable. We don't have the issue of any bottlenecks. In almost a year since we migrated all the workflows, there have been a limited number of incidents with regard to the platform.
It has definitely saved time. Due to the fact that we have fewer incidents, people were able to concentrate on platform improvements and automation of the platform itself. We are trying to automate as much as possible from our side. We could focus on improving Dev backups or CI/CD. We also improved a lot also with regard to implementing or POC'ing new features. We have much more time now to focus on new solutions that we can offer to our customer base.
Our team is called Oasis, which is a short form for Orchestration and System Integration Service. It's sort of our core that we want to integrate all the systems and orchestrate on the system. That's one of our key selling points. We have a team that has knowledge of most of the systems and how to integrate them. Camunda enables us to integrate, but the actual work is done by our team. All the brain power comes from the team.
We were able to cover all the use cases we had in the past. We were able to integrate with legacy systems, and we are also working on cloud-based solutions, such as Azure Functions, and other cloud services. I usually say to my customers that if their application or end system provides a proper interface such as REST, we will be able to integrate with their system. So far, we have been able to integrate with all the systems. We always try to find a solution, and so far, we have been successful in that part. With regards to RPA bots, we have not yet tried out the use case. It's yet to be proven from our side. We are currently testing out the decision engine and trying to promote that in the business areas. Depending on the success or basically on how people are adapting to that, we might also extend that, and it would probably be a new use case.
It can cover everything through code. That's really beneficial. In the past, you had to do certain configurations and things that usually were hidden in configuration, sub-configuration, and so on. So, only the ones who implemented the process would understand it, but now, due to the fact that everything is as code, everyone is able to read what's going on in the process. It's easy to see how the process is configured. It's more transparent for us to see how to change things, and it's easier to transfer tasks from one person to another. In the past, you had to deal with the subject matter expert on a specific process and the handover took much longer. Nowadays, it's much more fluid to understand the process and its implementation.
What is most valuable?
One reason we selected Camunda or Cloud/DB is that it comes with the support of the BPM notation, which helps to define processes in a standard manner. Another reason was that Camunda Cloud, as the name says, is designed for a new cloud era. That's why we went for that part. We were very early adopters of this solution. We introduced it even before version one was out. We hope that going forward, on the scalability side, we have the potential to scale the platform for future demand.
It's lightweight. It comes with a lot of flexibility, which, on the other hand, means that you have to have certain knowledge to handle features. You have the potential to change things, and it's easy to introduce new functionalities or new features to the platform.
It's open source, which was another key factor for choosing Camunda. Its being open source helps us to understand the platform better and also integrate better with the platform.
What needs improvement?
They should focus more on enterprise challenges. We are using the enterprise license, and I would like to see more interactions with Camunda. The enterprise license should cover enterprise challenges. We would need more touchpoints so that Camunda understands better what's going on at the enterprise level. That's an area where Camunda could improve. They can understand the challenges of an enterprise and try to come up with solutions from their side for the enterprise.
As an enterprise license owner, if we have some ideas for features, we expect them to release the features faster than now. So, a bit faster feature release is an area for improvement.
There should be a multi-tenant solution for the platform where it supports multiple organizations on one platform instead of having to spin up multiple clusters for each organization. There should be an easy way to integrate different departments into one platform without having to operate multiple platforms. The operations should be easier with the enterprise solution. It should not create more overhead for the operations people.
Another improvement area is the licensing model. We are yet to find out a smart licensing model for Camunda. We are mainly using the CP engine, and we require only a support and service contract, but this is not yet possible. Their licenses were probably made 10 or 20 years ago, but we need tailor-made licenses for the implemented use case. As a platform owner, I have to provide our customers with a static price tag. The price should not increase exponentially, and we should be able to tell them that we are not overcharging them. If the cost gets too high, it's likely to not be used in the future.
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For how long have I used the solution?
We started the evaluation in 2019, and in 2020, we got everything approved.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
From '21 to '22, everything has been quite stable after all the workload migrated to the new platform. Nowadays, it's stable. There are some hiccups, but they are more related to introducing the new changes. Usually, we are able to deal with them in a meaningful timeframe so that they don't affect the customer base too much.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
So far, we didn't face an issue with scalability. We started before version 1, and we are currently on the verge of moving to version 8. I would have more input after we have fully migrated to version 8.
How are customer service and support?
I have interacted with them many times. Usually, the response is quite fast. I would rate them a 7 out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using a different solution previously.
How was the initial setup?
I was here during its initial setup. It took quite some time because it also had to adhere to our architecture. We had to do some modifications to achieve this. It was quite intensive at the beginning. At the time, Camunda also provided Helm charts and other things, but in the end, we had to adjust too many things. So, we basically prepared our own automation in order to deploy the platform. It took us some time to make that automation ready. We wanted to have an easy way to apply the platform, and that took us some time. It was like an arrow that was dragged back, but in the end, it made us faster for new changes.
In terms of the deployment model, we provide it only as an internal service to Swiss Re itself. Currently, it's a hybrid setup. Parts of the solution are in the public cloud and parts of it are in the private cloud. It's deployed at multiple locations where the orchestration part is in the public cloud and the majority of the workers are in a private cloud. We have this sort of distribution of the platform.
In terms of the implementation strategy, we started the evaluation in 2019. We had multiple products. We did the proper requirements engineering and decided to go with Camunda. Before going to production, we organized Hacktoberfest where we invited our existing customers who were on the legacy platform. We let them try it out to see how it is for them. We got quite positive feedback from them, and based on that, we started the process of onboarding it.
Within Swiss Re, there's a standard process called the digital governance framework. We have to go through this extensive process where licenses are reviewed with regard to security, architecture, exposure to the network, etc. All these things are reviewed in this process. Within that process, we also have to do penetration testing to see if the system is viable for our use case and if it's secure. It was 2020 when we got everything approved. From there, we started with the migration. Along with the migration and complete evaluation, we onboarded new people to the team who had different skill sets required in order to run the platform in the future. So, we built up a new team in Budapest and also upscaled our existing team.
In the first phase, we mainly targeted people with a certain knowledge of IT and engineering. For them, it was easy to implement the workflows and so on. In the next or current phase, we are trying to introduce the platform to business users. In order to do that, we have to further improve the UI so that it's also easy for a business user to create a business process in the future. We are not there yet. It's an iterative process where we sit together with business process owners and try to find out their demands and adapt according to the demands. We are trying to avoid big-bang approaches and proceed in an iterative way, and with Camunda, we have the capability to iteratively improve ourselves.
For developers with a development or software engineering background, it's quite easy to implement Camunda. For those who do not have that knowledge, my team provides a service. We go to the teams and help them with the implementation of the workers and the workflows. So, we support it on an end-to-end basis. We get the requirements, document them, test them, and develop them. We cover all these things as an end-to-end service, but the goal for us is to move more and more toward a self-service platform. Until then, we will operate in a hybrid mode. So, currently, there are people who can do it themselves and deploy workflows, and there are people who require help from our side. Until we close the gap with self-service, we will support the people or designers. For business users, it's very important that it becomes very easy to use. Having an easy UI where they can drag and drop in their workflow and test it in a non-intrusive way is quite important going forward. It would be a success factor in the end. If we want to succeed in the business areas, we have to provide an easy platform that can be utilized by any person with limited knowledge of software engineering.
What was our ROI?
It hasn't had any effect on the cost of design, but the overall cost of operations and management is reduced. It has made our life a bit easier in terms of the reduction of incidents and the maintenance of the platform.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are using the paid edition because there is no separate support and service license yet. We are yet to find a suitable licensing model for Camunda because we only use the engine, and we have implemented our solution around Camunda Cloud. So, we are mainly interested in the support and service, and that's what we mainly use in the paid edition.
It was a fairly new solution at the time, and we wanted to support the open-source community with that. So, we wanted to ensure that this product has some sort of backing so that it can continue.
To someone who has the free edition of Camunda and is considering upgrading to the paid license, I would say that it depends on the use case and the criticality of their system. In our case, if we have production issues, we want to post them quite fast and we want to have quite fast feedback cycles. One of the reasons why we have taken the license is to ensure that we have a proper response in a meaningful timeframe. If that's not a requirement, probably the open-source license makes sense. It also depends on the appetite for having new features on the platform.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated multiple options. We evaluated classical BPM solutions such as Activiti, Bonitasoft, and the Camunda BPM platform. We also looked at jBPM. On the non-BPM side, at the time, we looked at Uber Cadence and Netflix Conductor.
What other advice do I have?
It's important to have the customers on board and work closely with them. That's because if they don't get what you are doing, you will not have customers. It's very important to work closely with the customers to be successful. It's important to make sure that customers understand what the platform does and how it's achieving. The training part and creating awareness are important. You need to create awareness about automation and what it can provide to customers.
Most of the time, people are too busy to do any automation, even though it will help them in the long run. What I learned is that you can't delegate it to a team. You have to be hands-on with the team and help them to make the automation. That is important.
From the Camunda perspective, you can start with the open-source version, and then at a later stage, evaluate if you require the enterprise features for your use case.
When it comes to connectors, we sometimes use the implementation provided by the community, but so far, we have not used the standard connectors provided with Camunda because, in Swiss Re, there are a lot of custom implementations, and sometimes, the connectors don't work straight away. So, we usually implement our own workers.
I would rate it an 8 out of 10. Once it has the improvements we need, I can give it a 10.
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