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Navigating the new normal brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic is a tricky affair for enterprises. As consumers took to digital services in large volumes, businesses could not afford to miss the bus. A McKinsey survey of top global executives found that nearly all industries witness businesses fast-tracking digitization initiatives- and they aim to realize the benefits that take 3 to 4 years of progress in just a few months.
Achieving digitization at this scale requires an extraordinary feat from your technology landscape, and those still stuck with legacy systems are likely to not achieve digital supremacy. There is a need to build modern digital systems that adapt seamlessly to dynamic market conditions and disruptive consumer behavior as exemplified by the pandemic in 2020. Cloud computing will be a de-facto choice for enterprises to unlock the true potential of digital transformation.
IDC expects worldwide spending on Cloud across all industries and for all offerings based on cloud to exceed USD 1 Trillion by 2024. While the cloud has so much to offer, one of the key technology initiatives that have helped enterprises quickly reap its benefits is cloud-based application development. In 2021, building cloud-native applications for enterprise digital services will no longer just be about making lives easier for each department but will also transform the entire business landscape.
Let us examine the key reasons why cloud-based application development is gaining momentum in recent times:
Serverless architecture
Removing the architectural engineering part from application development allows enterprise tech teams to focus more on what the software needs to achieve from a business standpoint. For a nominal fee, nearly all major cloud vendors offer support for serverless cloud application development. In other words, the vendor manages the backbone of your application such as the physical infrastructure, scaling, upgrades to hardware, and dynamic configurations of backend technology and hardware. The organization is freed from having to accommodate time-consuming and expensive server management chores. Studies predict that the market for serverless architecture will witness a steady CAGR of more than 23.17 % from 2021 to 2026.
Universalization of organizational data
As companies aim to bring in data-centric operational models across their organization, every department will need to have access to insights and data that is relevant to the digital scenario they handle – either from a customer point of view or as an internal innovation. Building your enterprise technology stack on the cloud allows this flexibility for universal data access. By enforcing recognized security policies and putting in place the right trust frameworks, enterprises can allow seamless interoperability and exchange of critical data among different business systems operated by different departments. Ensuring transparent and secure access to trustworthy data is one of the foundations of digital transformation and cloud-based application development sets the stage for achieving this feat.
Faster time to market
When competition is thick, enterprises certainly do not want their customers to be left waiting in the dark for new features to be rolled out. Cloud-based application development allows enterprises to roll out innovative digital services faster in the market. A combination of Microservices-oriented application architecture, continuous integration, and continuous deployment, all facilitated by DevOps, can help enterprises churn out cloud-native applications on a progressive scale. Upgrades to large applications or feature additions can be rolled out incrementally when they are built as cloud-native applications with CI/CD mechanisms. Additionally, development resources such as storage, performance hardware, environments, etc. can be rapidly scaled up by vendors on-demand thereby ensuring new features are sustainable.
Leverage AI and machine learning capabilities
From smart home systems to driverless cars, AI is redefining the boundaries of personalization and self-service models of businesses. Integrating AI capabilities into legacy application architecture is not a very easy move for enterprises. Transitioning into a cloud-native mode of application development for their business, however, can help onboard AI capability much faster and with better results. Adopting a cloud-based application development strategy also entails enterprise technology teams leveraging proven AI credentials from cloud service providers. AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and nearly all cloud vendors have invested considerably in building AI services that developers can simply plug their applications into via APIs. Following a cloud-based model for application development allows organizations to utilize these AI services on a usage-based cost model, allowing even smaller business applications to effectively integrate AI capabilities.
Cloud-based application development empowers organizations with flexibility, the ability to leverage trusted innovation, freedom of resource provisioning, and unmatched scalability. With so many positive facets, combined with the usual advantages of any cloud service such as lowered costs, better scalability, and universal availability, there is no denying that more businesses will build their digital aspirations on the cloud.
Get in touch with us to know more about building cloud-native applications customized to your specific needs.
This article was originally published at ETCIO.com
