Digitization has turned out for companies to adopt cloud technologies on a wide level. It is expected that 80 percent of enterprise workloads will be cloud-based by 2022. Companies are widely accepting cloud computing solutions for hosting apps and data-backups. Traditionally applications used to be built on an on-site resource but the cloud-ready architecture and its components will be hosted on virtual resources. Cloud-ready applications are different as they require a wide-area network instead of a local. It has multiple components like web servers, application servers, and database servers which helps these applications to run on virtual machines or even containers.
Migrating to a cloud environment is the demand of today’s market and thus cloud-ready application makes scaling easier and more affordable. The rapid change in consumer behaviors and demand is making the developers more focused on developing improved applications. The mobile app developers need to be careful while designing and building cloud application architecture for private or public clouds. Lack of skills and experience may lead to poor development of applications for cloud platforms and can lead to tons of functionality issues in the future.
Hence, to make sure that the application architecture is built specifically for the cloud platform or to create a cloud-ready application, it is important to follow the steps that will ensure success for the first time around.
Let us discuss the 7 steps to follow that you’ll need to build a cloud-ready application architecture.
Understand Infrastructure and Design for Failure
It is vital mobile app developers to understand about the resources that may fail unexpectedly and thus focus on design accordingly. One should be prepared at the start rather than being surprised at the moment as system failure should be considered as a natural occurrence. The prior preparation should be this impactful that at least the pieces can be managed without the complete application going down.
Design the Application as a Collection of Services
A proper plan needs to be made at first before moving towards cloud applications as this is a daunting task. The vision and mission need to be clear in mind. Cloud services or APIs can be best deployed through cloud applications. It is basically about combining the services that you build up from the data and then composite applications. A service-based architecture is imperative to build as the data gets built-up by various enterprise software development companies to provide composite apps to the clients with ease. This cloud-ready architecture lets you distribute loosely coupled programs easily.
Consider the Effects of Scaling
One should be prepared in advance while moving to a cloud-based environment. Scaling is one of the biggest benefits of cloud services, while developing app architecture, you need to ensure that it works well on the cloud. An app that is easy to scale may lead to destruction and crash soon on the road. One needs to be prepared in advance as dynamic scaling can wreak havoc. It is always suggested to start any project at an early stage. Developing an app from a generic version lets you develop regular updates and keep the app much collaborative. While developing application architecture for the cloud, the focus should be on user-interface and should have the in-built capabilities to interact with highly complex, widely distributed systems.
Keep Your Logs Accessible
No technology is 100% error-free in today’s time. A regular update to rectify the apps could turn out to be the use in the most. In this situation make sure you never store or write your logs in the local file system. As this makes it tough to access at the time of emergency. An open-source aggregator or a commercial aggregator is a third-party log aggregator that keeps your logs accessible at least to the developer team. This protects you from losing valuable data as logs are something that makes you lead back to your problems. An open-source aggregator lets you filter and tracks your log files on the cloud.
Security Comes First
Security is the major concern to look for while constructing any app. It should be built within the application architecture. Cyber-attacks are very common today, hence the data in the app needs to be encrypted. Security regulations and compliance terms should be cascaded to all the developers and appropriate measures like DevOps automation need to be maintained. The objective behind the designing should be secured as well as the advantage of the native features of both the cloud and the IAM system you use. Having a proficient cloud computing service provider helps here, as they know the nitty-gritty of creating a safe and secure app for your business.
Consider Communications between Applications
Chatty applications mostly work over a distributed network or open Internet and while they communicate constantly with each other, it is important to focus while designing these applications. Chatty applications at the end lower the performance of the overall application, hence combine communications into a single stream of data or a group of messages instead of constantly communicating.
Decouple the Data and Move Towards Microservices
It is always recommended to break the processing and data into two distinct units. The reason being public and private clouds have a complex distributing system, hence coupling data might lead to big problems when this program is placed on the cloud. Decoupling the data lets you process and store the data on just about any public or private cloud. This keeps the data safe and lets you track multiple services using service/API managers. The formation of microservices by decoupling the data makes the app perform well as there will be no additional data load.
Conclusion
Cloud computing services are transforming the way businesses are performing right now. It facilitates a new way of thinking while developing applications and architecture. The investment in initial application development for cloud is comparatively high to the traditional one, but this investment in services pays huge dividends year in and year out. The above provided are a few of the steps that you need to pay attention to though the majority of traditional programming rules remain applicable. This is the demand of the time to build cloud-ready application architecture as it opens your projects to a world of benefits.
