Businesses are becoming smarter and more efficient by moving on the Cloud. It is the finest framework, provided that a company should know how to do the transition. However, making a successful transition is half the battle; the key lies when a business will have to migrate its apps on the cloud. The task of application development and its migration is one of the most challenging Cloud-related tasks.

Cloud-based apps are assets for any organization; however, the app development in this platform is a move that must be well calculated and properly executed. For building apps on the cloud, the development team (or the development partner) needs to have a thorough understanding of this computing framework.

Every cloud framework has the ability to create and maintain applications by leveraging its capabilities. However, before a business and its development team embark on the complex task of Cloud-based app development, here are a couple of points that have to be kept in mind.

Cloud-based apps—today’s overview

The benefits of cloud computing have surely become evident. For the purpose of making this computing swifter and more efficient, there is a need to introduce app development in the framework. Put simply, it is easier to create software apps on the cloud; however, this phenomenon is yet to gain ground.

Presently, only a few leading app development teams are coding, testing, and deploying applications on the cloud itself; that is, only a couple of software companies are offering cloud app development solutions. Apart from them, many other companies are developing and testing apps on their personal machines; and then they are deploying the programs on the framework.

The multiples benefits of developing applications on the cloud

Many businesses (and software developers who went to college a decade ago) must remember the old way of performing app development. In the past, first, a team did a feasibility study; second, the same team found whether or not the business has the manpower and the resources (technologies, that is) to carry out the project; third, the project’s cost analysis was done. Phew! That, indeed, was a very cumbersome process and ate a lot of time.

However, with the advent of Cloud computing, the red-tapism associated to the traditional application development was abolished. Now, here are the benefits that a business can reap after it has brought a dedicated cloud-based app development team on board.

• Cost efficient

Apps that are developed on the cloud are economical as their cost is low when it is compared with that encountered while developing apps traditionally. (The reason for this dip in the cost is that most of the frameworks use the pay-as-you-go model.)

• High speed

With cloud by its side, only the ace cloud-based app development team needs little time to create even the most complex of apps. The framework offers tons of tools that can make the development work a breeze, provided that you know the art of using such widgets.

• Top resources

A cloud computing framework offers an array of high-end resources, so the business does not have to worry about the infrastructure, the processing horsepower, and the storage. Apart from all these services, the resources of the framework include different maintenance-related services as well.

• The best agility

If a business can leverage a cloud aptly, it can enjoy the best agility any company can imagine to have. With so many resources at its disposal and with low cost, a business is empowered to make key strategic and tactical decisions without thinking about its operational, real-world limitations.

What to know about cloud technical interface while outsourcing an app development project?

A proper technical interface builds an apt cloud computing environment. Companies that have migrated to a service-oriented architecture will find the transition simpler and quicker. While judging the efficiency of the technical interface of a cloud, a business will have to keep a couple of points in mind. Here they are.

• Data transformations and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

The API of a cloud is the software that enables a business’s applications and infrastructure to plug in the computing platform. This is the foremost factor that must be considered while deciding whether to go for a specific variant of the cloud or not.

That is because an organization will have to find a platform that empowers a company to build robust connection between its internal data centers and those of the Cloud. Basically, a cloud must allow a company to transform its data sets so that they can deliver quality insights.

• Data architecture

If the business has a set of internally created services, the company must leverage a well-designed cloud ecosystem. However, first the company will have to find a partner that can make the migration of these dynamic services to the cloud easy and quick. For that purpose, every business must check whether the platform architecture is modular or not. The architecture must be modular enough to enable a company’s services to move between different clouds easily.

For being effective, a company’s data has to be not only managed but also packed well when it is going to the cloud. Every cloud computing partner must be eligible enough to manage all the data sets independently without letting them get influenced by the data environment (warehouse, for example), the transactional system, and the packaged applications.

• Cloud security

Companies that are migrating to a cloud or using the platform’s services must be prepared to manage security really well. When it comes to cloud computing, a business’s data sets may be predisposed to a lot of unauthentic access. Further, for standardizing the realm of cloud security, there are a set of standards—British Standards Institution and Cloud Security Alliance—that many leading computing companies comply with. For this reason, the chosen cloud computing environment must have a range of security layers; some of the key layers are written below.

• Access control:

Every cloud environment must have the correct levels of access control; these levels are necessary for safeguarding the resource’s security.

• Identity management:

This layer is significant for authorizing the environment’s users at different levels; for instance, there will be a set of users who will be authorized to access the application service layer. While there may even be a couple of users who will be allowed to access and gain insights into the hardware component layer, so the identities of these users have to be managed well.

• Authorization and authentication:

Last but not least, there must be a well-developed authorization system that can monitor that only the correct person is entering the layer (which is present within the cloud).

• Support

It is a false notion that support problems do not occur as and when the infrastructure or the applications migrate to the cloud. The truth is that with the cloud, more support will be needed by the business as it has recently shifted to a new platform. The expertise of the partner must lie in not one or two but a range of leading cloud platforms. (The key platforms include Azure, Google App Engine, Cloud Foundry, and Amazon Web Service.)

Each of these points must be remembered and implemented when the time comes to partner with a cloud computing company. Every leading cloud service provider will follow best practices so that it is able to deliver a tailored computing environment for companies. Businesses, however, must always ensure that the infrastructure of such an environment remains robust and scalable. So invest prudently in cloud application development because with the right applications, roadblocks transform into stepping stones.