The ascent into the cloud proceeds in progressive stages. In the long learning curve of cloud technologies, the principle of “lift and shift” is only an intermediate phase. It consists of migrating on-premise applications or databases to virtual machines, but without modifying them, simply by copying and pasting them. By moving its IT resources in this way from one environment to another, without any real technological questioning, a company does not derive all the promises of the cloud.
The next step is cloud native. An application is specifically designed for the cloud in order to benefit from all of its advantages in terms of scalability, high availability, resilience or interoperability. “Unlike monolithic type applications, the granular approach of native cloud makes it easy to deploy new functionalities and thus reduce time to market,” says Mohammed Sijelmassi, chief technology officer of Sopra Steria.
To further accelerate development, a company can call on various ready-to-use cloud services offered by providers. These may include authentication or monitoring services. “Why rewrite the umpteenth brick of identity management when the cloud is full of very good solutions? asks Mohammed Sijelmassi. “It is as much for a company to focus on the differentiating elements. »
With these assets, the development of native cloud applications has a bright future. By 2025, Gartner estimates that more than 95% of new digital workloads will be deployed on cloud-native platforms, up from 30% in 2021. IDC predicts that the share of cloud-native applications will exceed 90% at the same deadline.
Microservices, containers, mesh, APIs and DevOps
The environment that hosts this new generation of applications meets a certain number of prerequisites. The native cloud approach is inseparable from the microservices architecture. An application or service is broken down into small pieces of software that can be deployed, upgraded and managed independently.
Who says microservices says containerization and the flexibility it brings. By encapsulating an application so that it can run on any server, the software container technology makes it possible to abstract from the underlying infrastructure. An open source brick that has become essential, Kubernetes will come to manage and orchestrate container clusters.
Cloud native also uses the service mesh. This service mesh corresponds to an infrastructure layer specifically dedicated to an application. It is thus possible to see how the various components interact with each other and therefore to more easily optimize the performance of said application.
Finally, to end with the buzzwords, cloud native of course uses APIs to call third-party cloud services. By offering to quickly deploy updates for any part of the application, it is also part of the DevOps and CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery) movement, the integration and continuous delivery.
Lack of internal skills
If, on paper, cloud native ticks all the boxes, there are still a few obstacles to overcome to see it become widespread. A study by OutSystems points in particular to the lack of skills and expertise internally. “Reasoning application architecture in microservices requires a certain maturity,” says Alexandre Cozette, Technical Director of OutSystems for France. “Cloud developers need to master containerization principles and be familiar with the offerings of hyperscalers. »
To address this talent shortage, OutSystems announced in November Project Neo, a next-generation low-code platform for developing cloud-native full-stack applications by taking care of all the technical “piping” behind it.
“Cloud native adds complexity,” adds Mohammed Sijelmassi. “You have to design the architecture to cut an application into sufficiently flexible and controllable microservices. Getting to the right level of granularity requires some skill building. If we describe services that are too big, we don’t take advantage of the scalability of the cloud. »
Sopra Steria’s CTO also talks about the cyber aspect. “A company agencies services that it does not control 100%. The design of this type of architecture must be based on a “by design” security approach. »
Finally, according to him, one should not become “a native cloud ayatollah” and throw the entire existing on-premise environment into the trash. “In a hybrid approach, you have to ask yourself what you keep and what you rewrite. A neobank can afford to build its native cloud information system from scratch. A traditional bank must come to terms with the full weight of its legacy. »