Building Apps for or in the Cloud

Cloud development has a few paths to it. We can even write code to create your own cloud. Not sure why you would want to but sure you can. But when we look at what it takes to develop app in this new cloud world we should look at the type. We first need to break down what apps we are going to build. Are we building an app for the cloud or in it?

Let’s break this down. First apps in the cloud, what does that mean? Well, this is where we are writing an app that will run with in a platform. And for the most of us these are the apps the vast majority of us are going to write. Any area of cloud modernization will be us modernizing apps in to the cloud. This development would be in languages like .NET, Java, NodeJs or Python. Being that most companies are building apps in the cloud, enablement needs to focus on this. Cloud concepts outlined in such things like the 12 or 15 factors. Managing data in the cloud is another area of enablement that companies should look into.

On the other side of this is writing apps for the cloud. For the vast majority of us, this isn’t where we work. Unless you are Google or you contribute to OSS on the weekends. This is app development for feature and functionality around features of a platform. Think of Helm or RabbitMQ. Not to say there is anything wrong with developing software in this space. But is it core to what your company does? If it’s not then why are you building solutions for it? The skill set for individuals developing at this level is much different. This is

We are looking less at developing apps for business more so apps for infrastructure. More so apps for cloud infrastructure. There is very little business value to doing this. When you have companies offering solutions to fix these very problems. Because if you are having these problems changes are good other companies are as well. Some of these solutions are open source and are free to use. Others are a closed solution, and my personal favorite is productized open source. It’s like the best of both worlds and they come with a few extra features.

If you are in the business to develop solutions for cloud infrastructure then do it. But if this is not your business, then evaluate other solutions. Know others have had these issues you are having. Using an open source or closed solution can get you back focusing on your business.