The evolution of Cloud development
The Cloud is a constantly evolving – some say ‘nebulous’ (excuse the pun) – domain and this rapid speed of development and change often makes it difficult to define. To make sure you are up-to-date with the latest progress, here are some of the current key features to take note of in the realm of Cloud development:
Moving to the forefront
Most significantly, we are seeing that Cloud services are moving from the background IT departments to the front-end of complex and successful businesses. As Cloud technologies are rapidly evolving, teams are increasingly discovering the value of Cloud development environments. In light of this, let’s take a look at some of the current trends in the Cloud development space.
The top seven trends for the future of Cloud development:
1. Accelerating technology change
We predict that we will see a continuation of the curve of accelerating technology change and this will underlie the rapid pace of IT innovation.
2. IT from the back office to the frontline of business
IT is no longer just a way to perform back office functions less expensively. Instead, it is moving out of the back office and into the front lines of business. As we increasingly execute business and personal activities via software based systems, online interaction is quickly becoming the default way we live and work.
3. Increased adoption of Cloud computing
Enterprise Cloud computing adoption will accelerate as different resources are required for these new highly unpredictable, customer-facing applications. Companies will need new computing environments that are flexible, hugely scalable, rapidly reconfigurable, and highly elastic such as our Flex Cloud product.
4. New application architectures
Traditional application architectures are inadequate for the Cloud, so there is a need for new Cloud-based application architectures. ‘Microservices architecture’ is fast becoming the new application architecture paradigm, in which many independently operating ‘mini-applications’ are assembled into a larger single-end-user-facing application.
5. The battle for skills
The underlying shift of technology requires new skills and, as a result, a skill-shortage among developers could create industry bottlenecks.
6. Rapid deployments
Cloud-based deployments enable extremely rapid deployment of software that can be scaled elastically to meet demand. This can be a game-changer if done correctly.
7. Running microservices on PaaS
A final trend in Cloud development is the spread of microservices running on PaaS. A microservice approach decomposes monolithic applications according to the ‘single responsibility pattern’. This separates projects or builds onto separate full-stack platforms so that database instances or web application hosts across services are not shared. Each development team is then free to choose different runtime languages and frameworks for its own microservice. Teams can also then evolve their own data schemas, application frameworks, and business logic without impacting other teams.
As we can see, the Cloud is a dynamic space which is rapidly evolving and bringing with it exciting business opportunities and innovations. If you are thinking about moving to the Cloud then try our autoscaling platform, Flex Cloud, for 14 days for free!
Alternatively contact us to discuss the various Cloud based solutions available to your company.
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