Unfortunately, we live in an era where most international news headlines are anxiety-inducing. From climate change and political unrest to the global pandemic and consequent financial crisis; it seems like these issues provide a constant backdrop to businesses, as they try to maintain resilience and survive in these uncertain times.
When the economic distress is at its peak, the best way for businesses to overcome these challenges is to adopt Cloud-native modernization. Contrary to a common misconception, Cloud-based infrastructure will not just impact the IT department of the enterprise, but it will also prove to be the most important step toward a successful business transformation.
Related: Enterprises all Out for Cloud Native Apps – but Challenges Abound
Last year, there was a research project about the Distributed Cloud Series conducted by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). This research highlighted the importance of Cloud-native modernization and majorly talked about the following four parts.
- The infrastructure of applications
- Cloud-based architecture and methodologies
- Code to Cloud, data observe-ability
- How edge impacts the digital world
An Overview of Distributed Cloud Series Research 2022
In this section, we will touch upon the Distributed Cloud Series Research of 2022 that included these data sets: information about market directions, trends in modern IT buying behaviour, insights about consumer decision making and differentiation between the developer and DevOps buyer persona.
The findings of the Distributed Cloud Series Research are summed up in the following points.
- In the last two years, it has been reported that around 66% of businesses want to use the microservices Cloud-native architecture in order to build more than half of their production applications. The trend of deploying enterprise’s production-based applications and server workloads on Public Cloud platforms is gaining a lot of popularity. It has been reported that today, numerous enterprises prefer a Multi-Cloud environment, and give a lot of weightage to application portability.
- The increasing popularity of Cloud-based infrastructures can be attributed to multiple factors. Organizations particularly appreciate the fast-paced operations of Cloud-based applications. A little more than 50%/ of the respondents expressed satisfaction over the immense positive impacts of Cloud-native/applications, deployed across their IT infrastructures. This also included the fast and accurate identification of errors as well as competency in code reviews. Although some respondents did show their concerns regarding the security aspect of the Cloud; however, a robust Cloud-based security posture really helps them tackle this problem.
- The majority of the respondents reported that there is immense importance of developer-ready infrastructure in the modern application platform. The basic technology behind the development of Cloud-based applications does not seem to change much, over the next two years. The respondents also indicated that they scale the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) implementations, up or down, depending on their requirements.
- Enterprises, having an efficient cross-functional team, usually handle the locations and architecture of the Cloud-native applications very well. The success of an organization greatly depends on the successful implementation of its Cloud-native ecosystems. This seems to be the reason why almost all of the respondents were of the view that there should be increased investment in the deployment and development of Cloud-native infrastructures.
Related: Cloud Adoption Gaining Momentum after the Pandemic
Distributed Cloud Series 2023 – What is Next?
If we take a look at the ESG’s 2023 research preview, we will find out that their future plan is to highlight these areas: Infrastructures based on Application Programming Interface (API), Role of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Automation and operations based on Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Related: Where is Cloud Computing Headed Next – A Directional Analysis
The Distributed Cloud Series of 2023, “The Mainstreaming of Cloud-native Applications & Methodologies”, majorly revolves around the following focal points.
- The state of DevOps and Cloud-based applications.
- Portability of the applications and infrastructures.
- Procedure to monitor Cloud-based environments and identify tools used for monitoring.
- Identify the enterprise’s response time to an incident.
- How do organizations develop strategies to manage containers?
- Problem identification and remediation process.
- Microservices and serverless application architecture executions.
Recommendations for Successful Cloud-native Modernization
ESG has recommended the following points that organizations must consider before they embark on the journey of Cloud-native modernization.
1. Build a Strong Team
For successful deployment of Cloud-based applications on the microservices architectures, it is imperative to have efficient development teams. It is also very important that the team is on the same page, so it can deliver a fool-proof strategy for a scalable Cloud-first approach.
Modernization efforts, involving microservices architecture, promise to deliver an elastic, scalable and forward-thinking approach to deploying production-based applications.
2. Consider the Distributed Cloud Infrastructures Before Deploying Cloud-native Application
Since Multi-Cloud infrastructures are becoming increasingly popular, Cloud-native applications must be portable and flexible. It is very important that they should have compatibility with multiple Cloud Service Providers (CSP).
3. Make the Applications Portable
The workforce landscape has completely changed today. Nowadays, organizations deploy multiple Cloud-based platforms (Private, Public or a mix of both).
The increased weightage being given to portability will aid in the easy movements of data among data centres, edge infrastructures, and the Cloud.
4. Prioritize Developer-ready Infrastructures
An extremely important area to consider, before the deployment of Cloud-based applications, is containers and server-less functions. The developer-ready infrastructures are pertinent to applications that are deployed in the Cloud.
5. Leverage the Methodologies of DevOps, Agile Software Development and GitOps
The iterative methodologies are extremely popular while undergoing Cloud-native transitions. Enterprises can up their IT game, by extensively leveraging GitOps, DevOps and Agile software technologies.
These organizations are faster to deploy new production codes, as compared to the ones that do not use them extensively.
6. Align Cloud-native Success with Organizational Dynamics
It is extremely important that all the key visionaries and related IT leaders are on the same page when it comes to deploying Cloud-native applications. All these related stakeholders will definitely impact whether or not the Cloud-based modernization is successful. This in turn will ensure organization-wide ownership of such initiatives, ultimately leading to success.
Related: How to Truly Develop Applications for Cloud Infrastructures?
Conclusion
To attain and maintain a competitive advantage, organizations are utilizing all their resources to make sure they successfully embrace the Public Cloud. Organizations have realized that the successful way for application modernization is if they have cross-team collaborations and investments in the right kind of technologies.
Specialized Cloud Service Providers (CSP), like dinCloud, provide modernization solutions for agility, scalability and flexibility across your IT infrastructure.
