Maximizing the Cloud’s Capabilities: Cloud-Native Development

The adoption of Cloud-native development provides companies with competitive advantages such as increased agility and enhanced flexibility in their software creation while making it easier to scale their infrastructure and adapt more rapidly to customer demands.  

Manuel Cubillo, Digital Transformation & Acceleration Unit Manager, and Poorvi Nigotiya, Senior Tech Lead, are two expert engineers who presented their unique perspectives and thought leadership on the top 10 technology trends shaping the next generation of technology. Manuel and Poorvi spoke to us about Cloud-native development, a software approach designed to maximize Cloud capabilities, enabling organizations to fully leverage the power and adaptability of the Cloud. 

What is Cloud-native Development, and what is it used for? 

Cloud-native development is a building and running applications approach that enables organizations to leverage the distributed computing of a Cloud delivery model. Cloud-native technologies help companies scale their software operations in public, private, or hybrid Clouds.  

Cloud-native applications are portable, reducing the risk of vendor lock-in. They are also easy to develop and deploy, increasing business agility since development teams can deploy with zero downtime. In addition, Cloud-native applications provide better resiliency.  

Features such as containers, service meshes, microservices, immutable infrastructure, and declarative application programming interfaces (APIs) illustrate the development approach for Cloud-native apps. 

Why do you think Cloud-native development is a trend that will shape business in 2023? 

Although the software industry has been taking advantage of Cloud technology for some time, in the post-pandemic era, many organizations have realized the importance of leveling up their technology-related efforts to maximize their digital presence and reach out not only to local markets but to a global user base as well. The ability to support a powerful yet flexible software solution is vital to business success, and on-premises or even hybrid approaches bring challenges from a cost and operational perspective. 

Cloud-native development offers a broad range of opportunities to create state-of-the-art solutions cost-effectively. It enables companies to achieve business goals faster while ensuring security, reliability, and scalability. 

Why did Encora select Cloud-native Development as a rising trend that will shape businesses in 2023? 

The requirements of today’s user demand the power and flexibility of the Cloud to meet business needs while remaining cost-effective. Each day, an increasing number of organizations are moving their infrastructure, platforms, and software solutions to the Cloud. Many more are evaluating the best way to do it in the short term. 

Strategic initiatives related to data analytics for higher data volumes are also a big motivation for companies to evaluate Cloud storage and processing, leaving behind their legacy platforms as a way to get business insights faster and make timely decisions. 

What makes Cloud-native Development different from traditional enterprise application development?  

It comes with a faster, simpler, more resilient, and scalable model of app development: 

• Traditional applications can be visualized as a monolithic model with interconnected services and functions, where a function having issues may lead to wider disturbances in the application. In contrast, Cloud-native applications are designed with a modular architecture, providing greater flexibility for feature updating
• Traditional application development uses a silo approach that focuses on a team-wise goal. The operations team receives a finished code set from the developer team and runs production. Cloud-native applications, however, follow a DevOps collaboration model based on multiple feedback loops that help accelerate the development and deployment process 
  
• Since traditional applications are deployed on-premises using a physical server, up-scaling the application implies a lot of hassle. By contrast, scaling a Cloud-native application up or down can be done with a single click and without having to worry about infrastructure or costs (as most Cloud platforms offer pay-as-you-go models) 
  
• In Cloud-native applications, automation is vital, minimizing human errors and accelerating the process of diagnosing issues, troubleshooting, and deployment. Furthermore, all production and deployment cycle processes speed up by implementing Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) 
  

In your experience, where do clients currently stand on the topic?  

Regardless of industry, location, or company size, most clients are aware of the benefits of Cloud-native solutions. However, depending on where they stand on their Cloud journey, we can identify some group trends: 

• Startups are usually Cloud adopters from inception since they greatly benefit from the flexibility and power it offers, and most of their projects are greenfield; so, taking the Cloud-native path is a natural decision for them 
  
• More consolidated organizations usually have some processes that still depend on legacy solutions at some level. While there is usually a clear intention to move to Cloud-native solutions, this process tends to happen gradually since there are business dependencies that may be harder to deal with  
  
• Enterprise organizations are unique since they usually have a mix of Cloud-native or Cloud-based solutions but also possess critical legacy systems that are not always easy to modernize or replace 
  

While this is not an exhaustive list, most organizations would relate to one of these categories. This means the challenges they face in their Cloud-native implementation roadmaps will vary in complexity. For this reason, defining a Cloud enablement strategy as a first step in the process is vital to success. 

How can Encora help clients evolve? 

Encora partners with clients on their Cloud journey in multiple ways: 

• During the early stages, our experts focus on understanding a company’s unique situation, defining the best strategy for business, and working alongside the client to prioritize initiatives and propose a suitable and efficient roadmap 
• During the implementation phase, we partner with clients to architect and implement greenfield solutions, migrate an existing solution, or modernize those solutions that are not fully leveraging the Cloud’s power 

Regardless of where the client stands — if they want to start a software development process, implement a DevSecOps initiative or set up a data platform and analysis initiative — Encora contributes the right talent and experience as a strategic partner on their Cloud-native journey. 

How will Cloud-native development impact software & digital product engineering? 

Cloud-Native development will: 

• Provide highly scalable and resilient solutions due to nearly unlimited access to resources 
  
• Lower operational costs as a result of highly automated processes and managed services
• Accelerate the time to market by leveraging “as-a-service” platform and software, enabling development teams to focus on software creation 
  
• Improve user experience through ease of access to resources at any location, enabling highly available and better-performing solutions 

How does Cloud-native development fit into larger IT initiatives? And business initiatives? 

Extensive IT and Business initiatives will likely cover multiple fronts, but Cloud-native development will undoubtedly add value to many of them: 

• From an IT perspective, Cloud-native solutions make it easier to integrate internal systems no matter if they are on-premise (in a hybrid approach) or in multiple Cloud providers 
  
• Integration of third-party solutions is generally more straightforward on Cloud-native solutions. Some typical examples may include ERP or CRM systems, helpdesk interfaces, sales management systems, or external data sources 
  
• Data analytics initiatives are a crucial component of business strategies these days, and Cloud-native solutions speed up data processing, enabling timely but also better-informed decision making 
  
• From a cost management perspective, Cloud-native solutions have been proven to improve cost benefits while speeding up ROI   
  

What does Cloud-native development mean for privacy? For compliance? 

A Cloud-native development approach should not affect the privacy or compliance of most organizations for multiple reasons: 

• The majority of services provided by Cloud vendors meet the requirements of the main security standards and compliance certifications, including PCI-DSS, HIPAA/HITECH, FedRAMP, and GDPR, among others 
  
• Access to a broad variety of availability zones and regions makes it possible for organizations to have their infrastructure and data at required locations based on their specific compliance needs  
  
• From a security perspective, the offer of encryption services (at rest or in transit), monitoring and alerting mechanisms, identity and access management, and infrastructure isolation — just to mention a few — provides companies with the right tools to cover most of their privacy, security, and compliance scenarios    

We sincerely thank Manuel Cubillo, Digital Transformation & Acceleration Unit Manager, and Poorvi Nigotiya, Senior Tech Lead. The focus of this piece, Cloud-native development, is one of ten technology trends featured in Encora’s 2023 Technology Trends eBook. You can read the eBook in its entirety by visiting Encora’s 2023 Technology Trends. 

“Cloud is here to stay and as organizations get more and more into it, they realize the greater benefits that come from not just migrating their infrastructure to the Cloud (IaaS), but also their platforms (PaaS) and even their software (SaaS) to create a Cloud-based environment that is powerful but also flexible, adapting to their needs while remaining cost-effective.” 

Manuel Cubillo, Digital Transformation & Acceleration Unit Manager 

References 

• Amazon Web Services. Security, Identity, and Compliance on AWS. 
  https://aws.amazon.com/products/security/?nc=sn&loc=2&refid=20b1e81e-a9f6-4740-993a-ba6eac5fa0b6 
• Amazon Web Services. AWS Compliance. 
  https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/?nc=sn&loc=3&refid=20b1e81e-a9f6-4740-993a-ba6eac5fa0b6 
• Amazon Web Services. Data Protection at AWS. 
  https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/data-protection/ 
• Amazon Web Services. Data Privacy Center. 
  https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/data-privacy/ 

About Encora 

Encora is a digital engineering services company specializing in next-generation software and digital product development. Fast-Growing Tech organizations trust Encora to lead the full Product Development Lifecycle because of our expertise in translating our clients’ strategic innovation roadmap into differentiated capabilities and accelerated bottom-line impacts. 

Please let us know if you would ever like to have a conversation with a client partner or one of our Innovation Leaders about accelerating next-generation product engineering within your organization.