Evaluating Cloud-Native vs. Hybrid Architectures for Health Benefit Administration Systems

Abstract

Cloud computing services yield a multitude of advantages for enterprises. Deploying a cloud-native architecture, however, entails new challenges and risks. Evidence should therefore be gathered to compare operational efficiency and reliability in cloud-native health-benefit-administration systems against those in hybrid setups that integrate cloud functions with traditional on-premise infrastructures. If business processes are considered to be implemented in a cloud-native manner by harnessing infrastructure services operated by a cloud provider, the effects on efficiency and reliability can be determined together with the coherences and trade-offs. All investigated cloud-native systems are based on the service portfolio of a single provider. Nevertheless, service deployment in a cloud-native manner is part of the analysis—on the ‘’payer’’ side as well—leading to many upstream and downstream interactions with system components hosted outside the public cloud. The summarized business processes deal with health-insurance benefit payments and claims. The results indicate that a cloud-native deployment can significantly improve operational efficiency, although the currently available cloud-native market configuration does not yet provide substantial cost advantages. The examined cloud-native solutions also demonstrate superior resilience. Regular monitoring remains a necessity, but the effort is reduced because of the often-implemented self-service function. Although the sustainability and completeness of the service deployment have an impact on the monitoring effort, having the monitoring requirements provided in the service description facilitates process assessment for the business.