Top 6 cloud-native application development trends to transform your business

Our current digital world is filled with Alexas and Siris and Cortanas. Before you can wrap your head around a recent trend or technology in the headlines, there's already another technology brewing its success at the back.

The secret behind these voice applications, smoother workflows, faster responses and actions on devices lies within a technology called cloud computing. Not only has it made everyday life easier for businesses and enterprises, but it has also changed our perception of how data can be obtained and leveraged.

So, how did cloud computing expand in its usage?

What started as an efficient storage solution turned into an inevitable solution with the pandemic in 2020. As organizations turned remote, their best bet at smoothening their workflows was with cloud computing. Scalability, flexibility and innovation led to businesses adapting, and eventually sticking to cloud computing.

Now that we're done with the rewind, let's tune into 2022 and how cloud computing looks today. With Big Data, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and much more in the picture, Cloud computing's potential has just entered different domains. Going beyond an efficient storage solution, worldwide spending on the public cloud is forecasted to increase in the years to come.

So, what do we, the folks at Toobler, think about the adaptation to a cloud-based world? Here's a list of 6 trends we've compiled that may turn out to be the next best fit for your business model or another idea to explore on your cloud journey.

The cloud-native approach has made it seamless for developers to release products faster and deploy updates without disrupting the applications function. As a growing field, cloud-native trends help visualize a future that eliminates the bottleneck of the current cloud-native stack. So, here’s a list curated by Toobler on the top 6 cloud-native trends to not miss out, for your business!

1. Multicloud and distributed cloud

Public and private cloud servers have struck the right chord with enterprises of this era, but as more and more businesses process larger datasets, what could be the next move? According to Gartner, edge computing is the next growing priority. Around 75% of business generated data is predicted to be processed away from traditional cloud centres by 2025.

Better described as the cloud of cloud services, multicloud essentially is a model that makes use of multiple cloud services from different providers into a single architecture. As one of th cloud-native trends popular in 2022, multicloud enables the requested data to be provided by the data centre closest to the user. This concept eliminates the worry of vendor lock-in as organisations can choose platforms, service providers and features.

On the other hand, the distributed cloud is a concept where various cloud computing technologies are accessible on a singular system with the same cloud provider. This disturbed model favoures cloud processing at the edge with flexibility and benefits of local deployment.

While it may sound like a long project for your development team, multicloud and did cloud form one of the cloud-native trends that may be here to stay. They meet business specifications better, allowing them to leverage the features that they require, from the platforms that provide them. Wherever public, private and hybrid cloud issues form a barrier, multicloud and distributed cloud's advantages fall in.

2. Low code and no code

Low code and no code is an approach that extends beyond programmers and reaches out to novice developers or to people who lack the training to build software. Low code and no code help rely on a platform that helps facilitate software development, making it easier for developers who want to save time and for inexperienced developers to get started on their software development journey.

For instance, as Kubernetes and other cloud native trends came to light, so did automation tools and the concept of multi-cloud. But Kubernetes had a steep learning curve that added complexity for developers and architects. This aspect is what low code and no code strive to solve as the demand for scaling increases with the shortage of skilled developers. A no-code cloud-native platform takes on a code-free approach to deploying and maintaining microservices.

The fundamental characteristics of this platform include

• Visual models- this feature replaces the code to auto-generate data models and workflows

• Validation and security checks- in the case of code generation by the no-code platform, it is scrutinized for quality to prevent any errors

• Avoiding shadow IT- these platforms encourage centralised management of resources and collaborative development

• Reusability- these platforms offer reusable modules with third-party tool integrations

Low code and no-code platforms promote the future of autonomous coding. They shift the focus from the coding part to the software development and deployment and increase accessibility to developers. These platforms also automate mundane tasks, paving the way for smarter software development.

3. Serverless computing

Containerisation and serverless computing go hand in hand when it comes to simplifying an app's lifecycle in a cloud-native environment. Computing resources are available on-demand, with companies having the option to pay as per their requirements from cloud vendors. The need of the hour is high scalability, flexibility, cost-effective and lesser deployment time, and among cloud native trends, serverless computing provides all these features.

Serverless computing offers a range of advantages over traditional cloud-based infrastructure such as,

• The vendor provides backend services and the developers do not have to deal with the servers

• No constraint of server capacity

• It has a 'pay as you use' plan for server space used by developers

• Applications built with serverless infrastructure scale automatically as the user base increases

• Releasing an application is made faster, along with bug fixing, updates or the addition of new features

Serverless architecture can work best for smaller enterprises than larger enterprises as migration and adaptation may be an issue. From a cost and system architecture perspective, serverless computing may just be the best choice for your business.

4. DevSecOps

Deemed a preventive approach, DevSecOps merges security aspects with a preventive approach. It integrates security teams in the software development cycle. Speed and quality are a guarantee with DevOps but making fixes post-production can be a hefty process. To bridge this security gap, cloud native trends such asDevSecOps incorporate testing and risk management earlier in the CI/CD workflow marginally reducing errors. With real-time feedback and insights, DevSecOps spans the entire software development life cycle.

By delivering apps that are secure and quick, DevSecOps promotes faster and safer development and deployment. This can be employed by organizations across sectors of healthcare, financial, retail, eCommerce and IoT ecosystem. DevSecOps forms a cost-effective collaboration between deployment and security.

5. Infrastructure as a code (IaC)

Infrastructure as a code is designed to reduce the developer workload and eliminates physical hardware configuration. The era of physical servers and configuration and their hefty cost is what IaC aims to solve by using configuration files to manage IT infrastructure. Not only does it lower the cost of infrastructure management, but it also reduces the costs.

Automation strategies such as Infrastructure as a code aim to reduce the slow, error-prone tasks of management of IT infrastructure. Integration of cloud native trends such as IaC into DevOps reduces the window time for development and deployment. There are two ways of approaching IaC, namely Imperative and Declarative. Infrastructure provisioning is made reliable and consistent by IaC, giving developers more time on their hands to focus on application development. IaC also eliminates multiple roles of managing storage and provides an automated advantage for infrastructure management.

6. GitOps

GitOps is a method of implementing Continuous deployment for cloud-native applications. Deemed as what DevOps is to cloud, GitOps is to cloud-native, the latter focuses on a repository for automated updates of the application. With GitOps, deployment and error recovery is faster, with easier credential management. GitOps forms a fast and secure method for developers and cluster operators to manage and maintain their Kubernetes applications better.

GitOps is a collaborative technology that forms a common operating model for teams. GitOps is not limited to Kubernetes and hence the tools, processes and guardrails can be used to manage and deploy code through continuous deployment. GitOps uses a version control system to house all information, documentation and code for Kubernetes deployment. The latter then automatically deploy changes to the cluster. In 2022, among other cloud-native trends, the Git-based workflow is to evolve to support multicluster deployments making it easy to manage thousands of Kubernetes clusters running at the edge or in hybrid environments.

As we transition into the cloud-native future, an exponential rise in the usage of cloud-native technologies across several industries is anticipated. Trends in the digital world form a major part of customer satisfaction and retention, and technology such as cloud-native can help businesses keep up with the same. Business agility, scalability and flexibility is an advantage of businesses adopting cloud-native technologies. Adopting newer trends can help organizations like yours learn more about how it may benefit the business, find replacements for a manual, slow or a particular stack of technology or even reinvent their enterprise IT structure towards a smoother workflow.

Looking to adopt a cloud-native architecture for your business? Enable increased connectivity, scalability and superior customer experiences with a dedicated cloud-native application development team from Toobler! And the best part? We’re just a message away. Contact us here.