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Why a migration profile is important for agile cloud migration – Blackchair

Agile cloud migration is a complex process, one that is best broken down into different steps. While cloud providers can help, contact centres are largely better off working with a partner that can help facilitate their shift to another platform.

Working with a different partner ensures smooth operations on the new UC platform, minimal disruption to work on the current platform, and secures data. A partner can facilitate the migration process and make it as cost-efficient as possible by performing several functions that include creating a migration profile.

What is a migration profile?

A migration profile refers to the technical, business, and human resource configuration that make up a contact center’s current CX platform. It contains vital information on how the system works, including work agent schedules, interaction routing flows, in-queue objects, and telephony configuration, to name a few. A migration profile is often compiled by the organisation responsible for migrating the contact center’s CX platform to a different cloud provider. Most importantly, a migration profile can accelerate the agile cloud migration process significantly.

How does a profile optimize agile cloud migration?

A migration profile can aid agile cloud migration by streamlining the process significantly and is often created by cleaning legacy systems. Here are just some ways a migration profile facilitates a shift to another platform.

Accelerate the transition to post-migration services

When migrating to a new UC platform, managers and CX engineers have to draw up plans for post-migration service. Part of the process is to write each business line from scratch due to the different architecture of the two platforms. This process is lengthy and often draws out the migration project, leading to delays and driving up costs.

However, by creating a migration profile, we can streamline the process and reduce the cost of migration. CX engineers can use the migration profile to build and scale out a delivery practice that will help move the contact centre from migration to service delivery as soon as possible. This allows contact centres to minimize the time needed to transition from platform migration to service provision.

With a migration profile, it becomes much easier to determine what will work on the new UC platform and what might not. For example, interaction workflows and tools may not work on the new platform. This could, in turn, affect agent scheduling. However, by creating a migration profile, CX engineers will find it easier to resolve several questions in regards to interaction workflows and models. With these questions answered, it becomes easier to set out suitable workforce schedules and interaction flows.

Contact centres can ensure accurate schedules and work shift patterns. This helps avert certain disasters that could hurt customer goodwill like inaccurate work shift rosters and wrong shift patterns that can cause a serious loss of goodwill with the platform.

Identify the most important systems in the platform

Through a migration profile, contact centers can determine which systems are important. Contact centers often use complex CX platforms containing several systems. Certain systems are no longer used (classed as legacy systems), while some remain vital to operations. CX centers can determine which systems and data are important and what is redundant, making agile cloud migration far more efficient than before.

Encourages efficient migration practices

The creation of a migration profile encourages efficient practices in agile cloud migration. For example, part of creating a profile involves cleaning the legacy data. At first glance, it seems like a waste of time and an unnecessary process. However, cleaning legacy data paves the way for more efficient migration because it allows contact centers to get a grasp of the legacy data and systems in the CX platform.

Working with partners to create a migration profile

When creating a migration profile, it is important to work with the right partner. The key to finding the right partner is to list out the right questions in the RFP. Some questions include: Will they audit and evaluate the whole configuration or only parts? What tools would they be using? How can they ensure agents can work without any disruptions?

By asking some of these questions, it would be much easier to find a partner who can help assess their legacy data and create a migration profile that can accelerate the agile cloud migration process.

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The Requirements for a Successful Architect

In many ways, an architect is much like a painter due to the fact that they are required to first of all have visualisation in their mind before they can put it into action. They are sometimes thought of as people who only design buildings, yet in reality they are often the brains behind some of the most creative and imaginative creations the world over.

In fact, architects have their rightful place in the history books if they are the people that designed some of the most recognisable landmarks in the world. When you think about the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Eiffel Tower and of course Big Ben in London, each of these had an architect behind them and each of these iconic structures are known worldwide as unique.

You may think that becoming an architect sounds like a very exciting prospect and whilst it can be a very high paid position unless you hold the ability to be part designer, another part engineer, can be problem solver and have a very artistic frame of mind it can be a very difficult career choice. You would need to also have a very high degree of determination and passion to be a success.

You would also need to keep on top of all of the latest materials that you can make use of during any proposed build as well as any new construction methods. Good interpersonal skills are also a must as you will always be working alongside teams of other architects, engineers and workmen on each of your constructions.

What exactly do they do?

An architect will work very closely with the client in the planning stages of a construction, with the client making it clear what he would like. The architect would then go away and draw up some initial plans before meeting again with the client. The client would then approve the plans or request some changes, with this process going on until the client is fully happy with the designs. The designs would have to take into account the budget set for the construction as well as aiding the client with any planning permissions.

Once the construction is underway, the architect would be required to make very frequent trips to the site to ensure that the workers are completing the project exactly according to the plans.

A junior architect will initially work alongside other more established architects before being able to take on projects for themselves. Once an architect gets a few buildings under their name, the jobs will roll in a lot quicker. In many cases the mere mention of one previously successful building will be enough to get an architect a new contract elsewhere.

These days for local and residential projects such as architects projects in Lincoln, you can also employ the services of architectural consultants who will be more likely to specialise in home builds and self build projects with expertise in planning regulations and other services.

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A New Method for Sample Preparation to Accelerate Mass Spectrometric Analysis

Mass spectrometry is a widely used protein analysis method, but its sample preparation process is complex and time-consuming. Researchers at Ewon University in Japan have recently developed a new method to significantly shorten the preparation time by anion exchange solid phase extraction centrifugal columns.

The findings were recently published in Chemical Communications. The benefit of the new method is that it does not require highly specialized operating techniques to perform mass spectrometry analysis of trace amounts of cell and tissue samples with good reproducibility.

In recent years, with the popularity of proteomics research, researchers have used mass spectrometry to analyze protein components in biological samples. When detecting proteins, it is often necessary to extract protein components from cells and digest them with proteases to peptides suitable for mass spectrometry analysis. Digestion of proteins in this manner often takes 20 hours or more.

In addition, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) is a surfactant commonly used in protein extraction processes. It interferes with mass spectrometry and protein digestion and must therefore be completely removed before analysis. However, removal of the SDS is at the cost of sample loss.

To overcome these challenges, researchers at Ewon University have developed a novel sample preparation method, AnExSP. It uses a microliter-sized spin column and an anion-exchange solid-phase extraction membrane installed in a pipette tip called a StageTip as a tool for protein digestion.

The researchers stated that by enriching the protein components on the surface of the diaphragm, they successfully completed the enzymatic digestion process within 60 minutes. At the same time, they established optimal conditions to elute digested peptides from the diaphragm alone, while retaining the SDS contained in the sample on the diaphragm, thereby minimizing sample loss.

They combined AnExSP with data-independent acquisition (DIA) of the Orbitrap mass spectrometer to successfully detect approximately 7,000 different protein components from 1 μg of cultured cell protein extracts. ” Using small volumes of StageTip to establish sample pretreatment conditions, AnExSP pretreatment can be used in single-cell proteomics research in the future, and the field has received increasing attention in recent years,” they said.

In addition, the AnExSP method can also be used for protein pretreatment in SDS-PAGE electrophoresis experiments. Compared with traditional pretreatment methods, AnExSP performs excellently, especially in detecting long-chain digested peptides. The researchers successfully achieved the purification of the target protein complex as well as the efficient detection of long-chain cross-linked peptides, which are difficult to detect with conventional methods.

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