Cloud-native applications are designed to deliver business value, such as rapidly incorporating user feedback for continuous improvement. App development using this technology speeds up the process of building new applications, optimizing existing ones, and connecting them all. Cloud-native app development delivers apps that users want at the pace a business needs.
Cloud-native apps are taking over with a storm. The online storage resources enable easy access to company content and data for all stakeholders. Their components are also available online and are compatible with different applications. Cloud apps have data, codes, and programming logic.
- Shifting applications to the cloud is not a binary decision.
- Organizations access their applications and find themselves in one of the different stages of the cloud-native maturity model.
- Companies progress further toward the cloud-native environment in order to achieve scalability, fast deployments, and fault tolerance.
Before we discuss cloud-native applications in detail, let’s examine various types of app infrastructure.
On-Premise Apps
Applications that are sourced and housed internally or on off-site locations are called on-prem apps. However, the on-prem housed apps are prone to high risk involving virus infiltration, hard-drive crashes, corrupt operating systems, and various other catastrophes.
Besides being risk-prone, they incur a high cost. Expenses rise due to hardware, power backups, licenses, operators, and vertical and horizontal scaling.
Cloud-Enabled Apps
These apps are easy to work with as they operate on the lift-and-shift principle, where data is easily migrated to the cloud. The lift-and-shift process refers to moving various apps, data structures, content, databases, and services to the cloud from a non-cloud application.
The traits and benefits of cloud-enabled apps include
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Density
Applications could be built on the same set of hardware and do not require a new set at every app development
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Cost-Effectiveness
Cloud-enabled apps cost less than conventional data resources. Therefore, businesses could quickly reduce their capital by lowering the cost of hardware, tech & support, building, and maintenance
Cloud-Optimized Apps
Cloud-optimized apps enable better and more access to cloud features to understand and fulfill organizational needs fully. Cloud optimization allows further cost reduction and an increase in performance efficiency. Cloud-optimized apps are a hybrid between applications moved to the cloud and the applications built for the cloud.
Mentioned below are some of the features of cloud-optimized apps:
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Uninterrupted Delivery
It refers to deploying an efficient and streamlined workflow. The code repository enables continuous delivery, making cloud-optimized apps seamless and effective.
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Scaling
Cloud-optimized apps allow scaling up and out of functions through which one can add ‘compute and memory’ and add the ‘server to handle the load,’ respectively.
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Redundant access
Virtual load balancers make room for redundant access to various applications.
Cloud-Native Apps
It would not be wrong to establish that cloud-native apps are an end goal for enterprises’ modern software development purposes. Cloud-native apps encompass best practices that allow ease of accessibility, efficient working, and smooth delivery.
These are compatible with a range of devices and platforms. Some of the characteristics of cloud-native apps include,
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Microservices
They perform services for individual tasks by coupling with underlying applications. They can also repair and update the apps quite easily. The deployment and maintenance of these microservices are more comfortable than those of traditional applications.
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Containerization
In cloud-native apps, multiple apps could exist under one virtual machine. Some of the added benefits of native apps include inbuilt libraries, configuration files, and binaries.
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Orchestration
Native apps could easily undergo orchestration, which allows them to manually configure applications. Orchestration leads to efficiently automating DevOps.
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Tolerance for Glitches and Faults
For cloud-native apps, the associated risk of single-point failure is less since the apps can automatically relocate to different locations, systems, and memory resources. In case a failure occurs, cloud providers can hot-swap out startup disks. Thus, the need for IT staff is less, which increases business continuity.
Every organization needs to understand the cloud pillars to understand what works best for your business. Therefore, depending on your business needs and what the cloud apps offer, make an informed decision.
When companies consider the development of new applications, it’s critical to not only understand the cloud maturity model but to ensure employees only build cloud-native applications.
This increases domain capability, flexibility, and efficiency while enhancing service quality and easy integration. Cloud-native apps also ensure cost savings, shared responsibility, mature implementation, and useful resource utilization.
The goal is not to focus on moving to the cloud but to understand its pillars and see what makes the most sense for your business. When businesses consider developing new applications, it’s critical to not only understand the cloud maturity model but also ensure applications are built as cloud-native.
Conclusion
In conclusion, cloud-native applications are essential for modern software development, offering significant advantages in scalability, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. These apps leverage microservices, containerization, and orchestration to deliver robust, fault-tolerant solutions that can adapt to changing business needs. By focusing on cloud-native development, organizations can ensure seamless integration, continuous improvement, and enhanced service quality. Understanding the cloud maturity model and aligning application development with cloud-native principles is crucial for businesses to fully realize the benefits of cloud technology and achieve long-term success.
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