Digital Twins: Capture the Full Agility of Public Cloud for Your IT Maintenance

Even minor technical differences between production and non-production environments can complicate maintenance for critical applications (such as SAP), catching you off-guard. To prevent this, temporarily cloning environments is a reliable method to ensure accurate testing and reduce risks.

To address our clients’ needs, we’ve created scripts that enable the rapid deployment of digital twins in the cloud.

What is a Digital Twin?

A digital twin, or clone, is a precise replica of an existing environment, kept entirely isolated and independent from other systems. This twin environment is duplicated in another secured setting, allowing a range of technical and functional operations.

In contrast to standard test environments, which may contain outdated or incomplete data, cloning creates an exact copy of the production environment—both in data and technical specifications. Technical teams can use the digital twin only for the period needed to complete specific activities, generally lasting from a few hours to a few days.

Cloning offers the advantage of more realistic maintenance testing, minimizing impact on daily operations and providing a well-timed deployment plan.

Creating a clone offers the undeniable advantage of offering more realistic tests of the maintenance plan and reducing its impact on your activities, namely by providing you with a deployment plan with precise timing.

Digital twins are an innovative leap in IT, creating virtual counterparts of physical systems to enable:

• Rapid testing of new features or products
• System performance optimization by simulating variables (such as through our Xperion service);
• Predictive maintenance, with early failure identification
• Safe environments for training technical consultants on company-specific procedures

Automated Scripting for Enhanced Efficiency

The oXya DevOps team, along with Google Cloud experts, has developed automated tools and scripts that streamline the digital twin creation process. These tools allow for fast, reliable, and standardized cloning with just a few clicks.y.

From oXya’s DevOps platform, simply select the environment and options (like HA database inclusion or application server count), and deploy your digital twin in the cloud for a designated period.

Unmatched Agility, Thanks to the Cloud

Public cloud solutions bring unmatched flexibility, allowing us to rapidly generate clones on a pay-as-you-go model. Without the need for lengthy acquisition processes, clones can be deployed instantly, with costs incurred only for the active hours the clone is in use.

Through our partnership with Google Cloud, oXya initially tailored tools specifically for Google’s infrastructure. However, our team has since standardized this approach, enabling us to create digital twins across various platforms with the same level of agility.

Secure Testing for High Availability (HA) Clusters

High Availability Clusters (HA) are essential for ensuring continuous access to mission-critical applications. However, they bring added complexity and maintenance challenges. Cloning HA clusters within an isolated environment lets us safely test updates, parameter changes, and other modifications while assessing potential impacts before making live adjustments.

If the clone performs successfully, we can confidently apply the same operation on the client’s actual environment, minimizing downtime. Beyond technical upkeep, digital twins facilitate performance testing, allowing clients to assess improvements with precise data replication (CPU, memory, etc.) and compare real-time execution metrics.

Cost-Effective Maintenance Solutions

The temporary, on-demand nature of digital twins significantly reduces costs related to labor and resources. Our DevOps team has developed a platform that calculates estimated clone activation costs upfront, allowing clients to modify options and adjust the clone’s lifecycle as needed.

This transparent costing enables us to deliver a detailed, upfront proposal of platform expenses associated with the digital twin, ensuring there are no surprises. Digital twins help clients conduct realistic application tests while mitigating risk. With oXya’s DevOps expertise, we enhance clients’ return on investment through public cloud solutions, optimizing maintenance and financial management for your IT landscape. Get in touch with our experts to learn more!