The Benefits & Features of Cloud Application Development
Cloud computing has taken over the present business landscape. It has become an essential tool for over 70% of digital workspaces, with 94% of all companies worldwide using it for their operations. Cloud application development has become an important process that allows modern enterprises to create productivity-based applications that streamline workflows and enhance the customer experience. In this blog, we will explain what cloud application development is, its benefits, the features that every cloud app development should have, and how to choose the best cloud app development platform.
What is Cloud Application Development?
Cloud application development is a process where the app is developed in a cloud environment and not hosted on a local server or machine. It is the extent to which it uses cloud services that differentiates a cloud app from a native one. The application may run on a web browser, but key elements like data storage are online.
Organizations are becoming more dependent on the cloud’s processing power and building innovative and creative solutions to different problems. They use technology to do things that were previously impossible. Cloud services have made it possible for enterprises to build numerous web-based cloud applications.
What are the Benefits of Cloud-Based Applications?
- Cost Savings: Cloud application development is often cheaper because you don’t need to invest in on-site infrastructure and servers. Cloud-based apps are 40% more cost-effective for small businesses. When you build and store apps on the cloud, you only pay for the services you use, which keeps costs low.
- Security: Data security has posed a significant challenge to companies for years, and it’s becoming more and more difficult to protect sensitive data. Cloud-based solutions provide security measures to help keep your data safe. Encrypted data is less accessible by hackers and other unauthorized persons. Your data stays safe even if someone gains unauthorized access to your computer or account. A cloud host monitors security carefully and is more efficient than a conventional in-house system.
- Competitive Edge: A company with cloud-based applications is more competitive in today’s business environment because it has the tools to succeed. Since the cloud service provider manages everything, the IT team spends less time managing infrastructure and more time building solutions that help grow the business.
- Flexibility: Cloud services offer more flexibility than local servers, and you can increase bandwidth on demand. This flexibility can significantly increase the overall efficiency of your organization. A cloud environment makes a business capable of quickly meeting market demands.
- Ease of Collecting Business Insights: Sifting through data can be challenging unless you have a good cloud-computing solution. Many cloud storage solutions offer cloud analytics, giving you a bird’s eye view of your data. You can quickly analyze information organization-wide and build customized reports. Use the insights you get to improve performance and build action plans to meet organizational goals.
Features that Every Cloud App Development Should Have
- Simplicity: Cloud platforms should make cloud app development faster and simpler. They should simplify the architectural decision-making process, making it easy to solve cloud application development issues. Good cloud application development platforms enable easier deployment of software across numerous IT environments.
- Flexibility & Scalability: Users should be able to add or remove computing, storage, networking, and other assets as needed, making it easy to modify or scale your cloud services. Cloud platforms offer automation software to handle dynamic scaling for users. Users can optimize cloud-hosted workloads and avoid bottlenecks. Flexibility is an essential feature in cloud-based application development. When demand for apps goes up, properly configured cloud platforms automatically add resources to handle the load. And when demand goes down, services return to normal.
- Security: Cloud application development platforms employ some of the best security experts worldwide and are more skilled at handling threats than most in-house IT teams. The development platforms follow common security protocols, so your data won’t be accessible to hackers. Your organization will also be able to meet government regulations.
- Automation: Cloud application development tools are designed to be programmatically managed, delivering value by providing support for continuous integration, resource orchestration, and capacity management, decreasing operational burdens.
- Pay-per-use pricing: Most cloud application development platforms offer pay-per-use pricing. This model reduces IT costs on a large scale, and the user only pays for the service or the space they utilize. There are no hidden or extra charges, and oftentimes, some space is allotted for free. Resource utilization can be optimized by leveraging charge-per-use capabilities.
How to Choose a Cloud App Development Platform?
Getting the right cloud app development platform requires reviewing how you design, build, and manage software in the cloud, and an enhanced approach to cloud app development to tackle modern challenges and outperform the competition.
Questions to ask before choosing a cloud app development platform include:
- What cloud computing services do you provide?
- How secure is our data?
- Do you perform regular backups?
- How frequent are your service outages?
- Can I easily manage my services?
- Can I scale services?
Cloud application development has become an essential requirement for businesses. The benefits of cost savings, security, competitive edge, flexibility, and ease of collecting business insights make it a preferable option for application development.
Sources:
https://www.koombea.com/blog/what-is-cloud-application-development/