Application development isn’t easy. Neither is the choice to select architecture – a programming language – a database – a security solution. All this requires careful planning to ensure safety and overall user experience. Is there a need to migrate your on-premises application to the cloud or opt for a cloud-native approach like SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS?
Migrating an application into the cloud expands the scope of the application stack. It brings more database options, integration with server-less, and other services. But it is pertinent to ensure your actual requirements, reasonable expectations around time – effort – cost while implementing a cloud-native approach. Consider database needs and select one service provider that matches your application architecture from Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, and Google Cloud Spanner. Let’s understand more about why they are preferable:
Benefits of Cloud Migration
-
- Lower costs
- Reliability and security
- Management of Data storage
- Increased scalability
- Faster time to market
Features Cloud-Based Apps
-
- Mobile applications require minimal device requirements to run on the cloud.
- App data automatically synchronizes with the cloud if you work offline.
- All app data gets stored in the cloud.
- Cloud-based applications are easy to use.
- Users can pick up and store data on the cloud where they left off on any device.
Different Types of Cloud-Based Apps
-
- Software as a Service (SaaS) – Users can access it through their mobile apps or by browsing on the web without actual installation and configuration. E.g. Dropbox.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) – Users have to ensure development tools, database management tools, operating systems, software, and hardware infrastructure to perform the tasks are in place. E.g. Windows.
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – Users can manage their network, storage, or service through public and private cloud platforms. Vendors like AWS lend servers, storage, or hardware.
9 Step Process for Cloud-Based Application Development
It is quite a task to convert an entire app on a cloud-based service module properly.
-
-
- Select a reliable service provider.
- Research and understand the requirements of your application – app platform, data storage requirements, database, migration on cloud requirements, security, and compliance requirements.
- Team of development experts who understand all technical specifications and estimate the budget to migrate the app.
- Create an app migration workflow and share it with your team to start working on the steps.
- Consider all features for migration success – architecture and the service model, measuring the cloud migration performance, data movement to the cloud at peak response time, the ratio between total request and error request to avoid unusual user activity.
- Consider and define a cloud environment – Hybrid model, public cloud, private cloud.
- Select a strategy for cloud migration – to get the correct monetization model – from amongst refactoring, retaining, retirement and repurchase.
- Automate migration – Choose a cloud environment to automate the migration. Automation tools facilitate this. It helps in replacing manual infrastructure and getting continuous integration and delivery.
- Conduct a pilot migration to assess the process carefully. It should involve checking the efficiency of the migration strategy.
-
Compendium
Migrating a monolithic application to the cloud can be challenging, but it can turn out to be one of the safest and cost-effective alternatives to develop your application. Cloud computing companies propel cloud apps as they are easier to integrate with the databases for launching on the play store and app store, are less expensive, and bring new opportunities for businesses to be efficient and effective.