There are several factors to consider when developing a cloud-based application. These include costs, reliability, scalability and security. These factors should be considered in order to find a cloud development platform that meets all of your business requirements. Here are some considerations to make the process as smooth as possible. You should also keep in mind your company’s specifics and goals when choosing a cloud development platform. Moreover, it’s important to choose a cloud framework that’s interoperable so that your application can run on a variety of devices and integrate with other cloud services. Lastly, the data should be able to transfer smoothly from one cloud to another.
Costs
The costs of cloud-based application development depend on various factors. These include the size of your development team, the complexity of your application, and where you decide to hire your developers. You can hire in-house developers, freelancers, or outsource the work. However, hiring in-house developers may cost you more in the long run because of the hiring process and other related costs.
While the benefits of cloud-based application development are numerous, they come with some costs that should not be overlooked. For example, many development tools have a subscription-based, per-seat pricing model. However, one company believes that these payments should not start until the development tools are actually being used in production.
Reliability
Reliability is a critical issue in the cloud based application development process. Because these applications run at a high-speed and are constantly changing, it’s difficult to measure and maintain them. Fortunately, there are some methods for evaluating the reliability of a cloud application.
One approach is to measure the fault tolerance level of a system. The higher the fault tolerance, the lower the likelihood of disruptions. This measure enables IT to quickly identify causes of failures. It’s important to note that reliability and Availability are related. In fact, these two concepts can be seen as subsets of each other.
Cloud-based applications don’t require expensive hardware or server infrastructure. This means that developers can focus on building business logic and creating a high-quality user experience. But, cloud-based applications can face security risks. Security measures such as data encryption and SSL can mitigate these concerns. It’s important to choose a cloud provider with a high level of reliability and security. A provider should also have servers in different countries, ensuring that there’s no single point of failure.
Scalability
The term scalability refers to how well a system can accommodate changes in demand without having to undergo drastic refactoring or redesigning. As the name suggests, scalability refers to systems that can meet demand at any point in time and in a transparent manner. While scalability is often referred to in terms of technology, it also refers to non-technical elements such as people and processes. These elements must co-exist to achieve scalability.
For example, an app might be able to scale up without any noticeable performance degradation if it is developed with a cloud-based application development platform. In this case, IT operations can scale up the resources underpinning each software component, but this cannot be a guarantee. Developers must design for scalability. Otherwise, adding support for scaling could significantly increase the cost of development while degrading performance. Furthermore, scalability is particularly important if multiple applications share the same components.
Security
Cloud based application development entails a lot of policy and security configuration challenges. Since cloud resources are typically self-service provisioned, there are far more opportunities for inadvertent exposure and misconfiguration. This is particularly problematic for applications that leverage “secrets,” which are the target of attackers. Many development teams unwittingly expose these secrets, including hard-coding sensitive data into repositories and manifests.
Another major concern is the risk of data loss. Because cloud applications typically expose APIs to the public, partners, and third parties, they’re prime targets for attackers looking to steal sensitive data or commit fraud. Furthermore, since APIs are usually more lightly protected than the data itself, it’s difficult to protect them without impacting performance. Another potential issue is account hijacking, in which hackers steal account credentials and use them to access critical systems. Many companies and enterprises lack the staff and resources to implement effective security measures, which leaves them open to threats.
Customer experience
Customer experience is a key consideration for a business. It helps build customer loyalty and helps generate financial results. According to research, 69 percent of consumers say that great customer service makes a brand their favorite for online shopping. In addition, 80 percent of consumers make purchasing decisions based on an emotional connection to a brand. Moreover, 76% of consumers are loyal to one brand for more than four years.
While the customer experience is based on a truckload of variables, many of these factors are outside of the control of businesses. However, cloud-based services offer business owners the opportunity to manage their customer experience and customer intelligence in a way that helps them achieve their customer relationship goals.
