We discuss how harnessing the power of the cloud for software delivery can transform your business. In this blog, you will learn about cloud strategy, cloud-native development, and practical steps toward adopting cloud services for agile, scalable, and cost-effective software development.
The race for cloud adoption is quickly heating up. Global user spending on public cloud solutions hit $600 billion in 2023, driven by the need for scalable, flexible solutions to match the pace of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, and more.
Rapid digital transformation forces companies to lean on cloud solutions and strategy to stay competitive and accelerate their modern software delivery. Enhanced cost savings, more powerful data analytics, increased security, and improved remote collaboration are simply some additional benefits for companies using innovative cloud strategies.
In this article, we’ll discuss transforming the software development lifecycle through smart, innovative cloud adoption and migration.
Cloud for Software Delivery: Transforming the Development Lifecycle
In the past, software delivery used on-premises (on-prem) deployment models and manual installations, requiring in-house maintenance and large upfront investments in infrastructure. This approach limited the ability to scale and resulted in infrequent software shipping, creating potential security vulnerabilities and downtime.
Now, cloud solutions have revolutionized modern software delivery, creating opportunities for Agile and DevOps methodologies to truly shine. DevOps methodology is especially popular, with 47 percent of software development teams using strategies like automated testing, continuous appointment limit, containerization, and infrastructure as code.
Modern software delivery moves fast, especially to keep up with the new pace of innovation. Cloud computing offers the necessary infrastructure, tools and environment to support the always-on software development lifecycle.
Cloud-native development offers benefits like increased speed and scale, improved team collaboration, comprehensive monitoring and feedback loops, and, perhaps most importantly, cost-effectiveness.
Let’s take a look at some key distinctions between cloud-native development and historical tactics.
Key Components of Cloud-Native Development
Cloud-native development is starkly different from historical, on-prem development. For example, microservices architecture creates a building block of cloud-native development, and different orchestration tools like Kubernetes allow for containerization. Containers like Docker packages encapsulate applications and dependencies into transferable, portable units that enable scalability and improved resilience.
Continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines are another key component of cloud-native development, allowing for automated processes that rapidly deliver software work, changes to software, and automatic deployment to production environments. However, 47 percent of developers use some CI/CD techniques, but only 20 percent blend both approaches to automate all code deployments to production.
These rapid development tools powered by cloud environments allow for rapid iteration and improved efficiency to continuously deploy software updates with high reliability. However, cloud-native development does have some challenges.
How to Overcome Challenges in Cloud Adoption
Migrating to the cloud is often an overwhelming project with potential challenges around security issues, cost management, lack of expertise, governance, and balancing multiple cloud workloads. Migrating legacy environments might prove difficult, especially if decades of data and infrastructure are locked into on-premises sites. Plus, organizations might face vendor lock-in issues, which can slow cloud adoption.
Security is often the paramount concern, and 69 percent of survey respondents said their main cloud issue focused on potential data loss and leakage. Businesses should implement a four-pillar, comprehensive security strategy and begin the cloud migration process with thorough risk assessment and compliance. This proactive security approach not only future-proofs your technology but sets you up for a successful cloud migration.
Multi-layered defenses, along with regular security audits and testing, play a critical role in improving the security of cloud environments. Blending human and automated technology also creates a uniquely defensible system, ensuring top data protection standards and consumer privacy.
True business innovation and growth start with cloud technologies, like some of the real-world success stories below.
Real-World Success Stories: Cloud-Powered Transformation
Real businesses like yours are powering their next digital transformation era with cloud strategies.
For example, a leading government financial organization cultivated cohesion within the cloud to reduce software licensing costs, add additional functionality, and build a more cohesive strategy toward long-term data information sharing. By implementing a full AWS GovCloud strategy, the business improved security, cost savings and scalability.
In another example, Carbonite acquired a subsidiary but needed to manage complex application and data cloud migrations to unite the companies. Within the cloud, both the parent company and subsidiary managed a complex application and data migration for smoother business processes with Microsoft Azure products. They improved deployment time, increased security, and built more scalable applications to foster their next wave of innovation.
A driver of both of these business success stories is that each used a tailored cloud strategy specific to their goals, customer needs, and long-term objectives.
Crafting a Tailored Cloud Strategy for Your Business
If your organization is ready to adopt and migrate to the cloud, one of the best tips is to work with an expert third-party cloud service provider. They can help evaluate your organization’s current infrastructure, hardware and software to determine the most impactful changes. An expert partner can also help determine workload requirements and mitigate different security and compliance concerns while recommending the right service model based on your organization’s unique needs.
Plus, cloud service providers consider your organization’s holistic needs instead of focusing on a singular department. Years of expertise in working with companies within your industry help these vendors craft the best-tailored cloud strategy for your business from the start, such as recommending Microsoft Azure if your main concern is scalability.
No matter your business objective, your team can use cloud strategies to enhance collaboration and innovation and drive your business forward.
Using Cloud for Enhanced Collaboration and Innovation
Cloud environments accelerate software tactical delivery and foster a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement. Modern software deployment strategies practice ongoing iterations instead of waiting months to ship a final, perfect product.
Also, roughly 86 percent of software engineers work remotely, and many IT roles prefer remote work over hybrid or in-office environments. Unified development environments enable operations, testers and engineers to work together seamlessly – regardless of location, time zone and language. More collaborative, asynchronous environments allow for this accelerated software delivery while enhancing the responsiveness of development teams to new fixes and customer requests.
Rapid innovation and enhancements in cloud development are accelerating the future of cloud-native development – a reality of truly scalable, flexible architecture.
Future Trends in Cloud Computing and Software Delivery
The future of cloud computing and software delivery is even more exciting than the current state. Rapid improvements to artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things offer incredible opportunities for innovation, such as revolutionizing manufacturing and the supply chain, edge computing for powerful consumer devices, 5G connectivity, and quantum computing to accelerate research and product development.
All of these powerful innovations need a next-generation cloud infrastructure, and businesses will have to migrate and embrace hybrid or multi-cloud strategies to meet market demand. There truly is no future of tech without modern software delivery.
People Also Ask: Addressing Common Queries
If your business is exploring cloud migration and adoption, take a look at some of the frequently asked questions below.
Why is cloud adoption essential for modern software delivery?
Modern software delivery demands cost efficiency, remote collaboration, agility, and flexibility. Coud solutions are best poised to deliver these benefits. Legacy, on-prem architecture is expensive and outdated and does not easily allow for the continuous improvement and iteration required in new Agile software methodologies.
How does cloud computing improve software development processes?
Cloud computing provides the necessary foundation to facilitate modern software deployment. Infrastructure is scalable and flexible, and cloud platforms can easily meet demand. Sandbox environments allow for easy testing of new features without affecting production, and continuous iteration happens easily across unified platforms with real-time communication. With cloud computing, developers can create, deploy, and iterate on code changes quickly and efficiently.
What are the best practices for developing a cloud strategy?
With cloud adoption growing at a fast compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.3 percent, organizations are rapidly embracing these new strategies. Best practices include defining clear business objectives for your cloud strategy and obtaining leadership buy-in from the beginning. While cloud solutions offer numerous benefits, focus on your business’s specific requirements so your cloud strategy succeeds.
Getting Started with Cloud for Software Delivery
Cloud migration is not a one-time, one-size-fits-all project. It’s a huge strategic decision requiring all leadership levels to align on key initiatives and priorities. Start by defining clear objectives and business goals, such as reducing costs, enhancing agility, or increasing customer satisfaction. Then, assess your current infrastructure, processes and applications. If you’re like most companies, you’ll have significant investments in legacy technology.
Our security engagement with Hilldrup turned into a cloud transformation project that lowered costs and freed up employee’s time.
Our Cloud Solutions experts can help you measure the success of cloud initiatives, ensuring your project stays on budget and on track to deliver your key objectives. Let’s talk
