Top 5 Factors to Consider While Developing a Cloud-Native Application
Whether or not cloud-native and cloud-ready mean the same thing but cloud-native applications are cloud-ready for sure. The agility and innovation demanded by businesses across the world are augmenting the adoption of cloud-native applications. With the majority of businesses getting transformed into digital and opting for legacy system modernization by moving to the cloud, it is becoming increasingly important to develop cloud-native applications.
However, you should always create and follow an application modernization roadmap based on your business requirement to achieve your goals easily. There are a few factors that must be considered before developing a cloud-native application. For, your help, here in this article we are going to discuss the top 5 factors. So let’s go through them one by one.
Factor#1: Application Architecture
Make sure you have the microservices approach towards architecturing the cloud-native application. One of the primary reasons why you need cloud-native applications is faster delivery and iteration of the application functionality. However, if you look at how the traditional applications were architectured, you will find that all the code that applications comprised were combined to make one monolithic executable to be deployed on the server. Now if you needed to change any code, no matter how small it would be, you had to rebuild the entire executable. It would certainly take time, for it is a lengthier process. The developer would be integrating and testing the code and the development team would be building the entire application once again. Even worse, since the integration process overheads restrict the new feature release to a release window mostly, you can imagine the overall time it takes to release the app again. This is how your monolithic application hampers the update frequency that in turn thwarts you from responding to market demands quickly.
On the contrary, the microservices approach, which was pioneered by Netflix, helps you get rid of the integration & testing problem by presenting you with an all-new executable deployment model. It allows a single application to be deconstructed into several independently executing functional modules. So, now if you require to update & deploy one module, you can successfully do that without impacting the other parts of the application. This in turn not only reduces the time involved but also helps you reduce the integration overhead, easily handle erratic workloads and easily conduct the test, and so on.
Factor#2: Cloud Platform Automation
Cloud platform automation is a crucial factor in the development of a cloud-native application as these applications are developed and run in the cloud. A cloud-native application can’t promise better speed and agility until the cloud platform is fully automatically provisioned.
Following the Infrastructure- As-Code paradigm allows you to reuse all the most celebrated best practices for documentation, version control, testing, and software life-cycle management. It also reduces the errors and overall downtime, as a result, improves the entire customer experience.
Factor#3: Serverless Functions
Serverless functions don’t mean your code will not run on servers, they will. However, the accelerating instances for running the code and scaling out under load will be handled by your cloud service provider. CSPs offer several serverless functions that cloud-native applications can make use of. They allow you to create asynchronous event-driven architectures with the help of microservices.
Did you know, these are open source solution services like IoT, data storage, or Big Data are built from? The takeaway is you don’t require complex platforms to deal with installation & configuration issues. All you need to do is pay attention to the functionality itself.
Factor#4: The DevOps Attempt
In most companies, IT comprises distinct groups, each handling a dedicated part of the application lifecycle that includes development, application building, Quality Analysis, deployment, and operations. Every group follows a unique process and after task completion passes on the manual handovers to the next group that takes a considerable amount of time. Eventually, it results in extremely prolonged deployment time frames that could be disastrous in today’s IT landscape where frequent updates and rapid deployment are the norms.
However, the DevOps attempt helps you in breaking down the barriers that exist between the IT groups by automating the manual processes. The attempt is aimed at reducing the time between coding and the production stage and it successfully does.
Factor#5: Testing
The majority of IT organizations have a dedicated yet underfunded & thinly staffed QA group that performs the tests and ensures the application works properly however the process is restricted to manual, functional testing. On top of it, most organizations postpone the QA to be performed just before the deployment and end up dealing with last-minute rework or deploying an unsatisfactory code. However, with this approach, they can’t reach far.
You can’t take application quality so lightly. Rather, make sure QA testing is an essential section of the development process itself. To get the issues identified and addressed at the right time so that they do not lead to application outages or a panic response, ensure QA testing is accomplished earlier in the process.
Wrapping UP
Don’t forget this is a cloud era when every business is opting for legacy IT modernization to match the pace with the evolving technology. Building cloud-native applications are a crucial part of the application modernization roadmap. Switch to cloud-native apps and enjoy a speedy and agile cloud environment. Just keep the above-mentioned factors in mind while developing a cloud-native application.
