It is predicted that there will be a growth of nearly 250% in the number of applications in production by 2025, from 300 million to 800 million.
There is no doubt that cloud can be the accelerator for the requirements of new application development.
So says Dave Funnell, Cloud Provider Manager at VMware, who will be presenting a keynote address at the ITWeb Cloud, Data Centre & DevOps Summit 2020, happening on 11 February at The Forum in Bryanston. The topic of his address is: "Accelerating the application journey – public, private or hybrid: the ongoing evolution of cloud adoption to drive application delivery."
According to Funnell, the key is to define the cloud requirements for each specific application service.
“Too many organisations seem to be taking the approach that cloud is a silver bullet and a one-size-fits-all solution,” he says. “In reality it is very different, and each specific application will have different platform and service requirements.”
He says that once an organisation is consuming a significant number of services from the cloud, it will need to have an operational model that reduces complexity and allows for the successful delivery of application service. Such a model encompasses networking, security, performance management, cost management, and more.
Migrating application environments
Speaking of how businesses should go about migrating their application environments, Funnell says a business owner needs to first understand the business and functional benefits they wish to attain by migrating. “In many instances, this seems to be opaque and migrations are being embarked upon without understanding exactly what the end picture will look like. This can lead to a number of issues.”
In addition, he says, ensuring a successful IT operation that enhances the successful delivery of application services to the business, rather than becoming a drag on new application development, is key. “Far too often, IT seems to be caught in a migration trap that inhibits new application development.”
He says enterprises need to understand the performance and cost characteristics of any specific application, know the lifecycle they are predicating for the application, then choose the most appropriate migration strategy for that application.
“Certainly, the migration strategy should be such that the process is completed in days and weeks, not months and years, as is very often the case today. This is one of the attractions of developing a hybrid cloud architecture: it allows for freedom and choice, as well as far more successful application migrations.”
Points of failure
Funnell says there are certain points of failure to avoid.
“The migration should be rapid, with predictable performance and cost for each application service. This will allow for real focus on the development of new application services, rather than getting caught up in a long project that takes resources away from the priorities of the business. Too often businesses have a blind spot to the time, resources and cost of a migration, with fatigue very often setting in as the process is viewed as a failure and costs escalate.”
Research by 451 Group put the number of applications being ‘repatriated’ post migration at 30%, mainly because of poor performance and cost implications, two critical parameters.
According to Funnell, nothing can be worse than having to repatriate applications, so understanding the nature of the platform an application requires is a fundamental first step.
“There are numerous options for migrating and building new applications, so IT needs to choose carefully,” he concludes. “The end result for the majority of enterprises will be a hybrid, multi-cloud operational environment, with applications in a private cloud as well as consuming more than one public cloud.”
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