Introduction
Establishing a stable business requires resources which can accelerate the foundation and enable its smooth functioning even in complex situations. Enterprises prefer alternatives which can retaliate mediocrity and encourage professionalism in their business. Cloud computing brings on the services and resources that big enterprises and companies necessitate. It has increased the bandwidth of online community by connecting different organizations and their consumers with each other worldwide.
Cloud has enabled easy and direct access to external data sources and storage services with the able guidance of an application programming interface (API). APIs have the capability to keep the applications minimal in size. They can carry processing and analytical computations in the cloud itself thereby harnessing the true potential of a cloud service. These APIs incorporate enduring flexibility that can encourage faster development and yield anticipated returns.To make it easy and simple for these companies, a cloud-native, a cloud-based, and a cloud-enabled development platform was introduced considering the demands of the industry. Always keep in mind the fact that not all clouds are created with the same features and abilities. Different organizations prefer different models which will tick all their fundamental guidelines and business obligations. Let us check out each one in brief.
Cloud-Native Development
Cloud-native development was designed with a goal to facilitate and utilize the cloud to its maximum potential. When we communicate with the cloud and deploy our applications, we need a service which can enable better execute. Cloud-native helps in designing, building and running applications on the cloud. It consists of continuous integration, container engines, and orchestrators. These components have been devised in cloud-native to encourage faster speeds, more scalability, and optimized management costs. Applications like CoreDNS, Prometheus, Kubernetes, and Fluentd are having their own set of open-source products which is being managed by the cloud-computing native foundation.
Cloud-Based Development
A cloud platform is a compelling mixture of cloud computing, networking, storage and business utilization that promote IT and consumer satisfaction. Microsoft has enabled the fast track of resources with its Azure platform. Google started preparing for these challenges by launching their Google Cloud Platform. The cloud has complete command over the services and hallmarks it yields, thus deliberately not allowing the users to interfere with their daily functioning.
Cloud-Enabled Development
Every enterprise has a separate department for IT services which looks after the IT obligations of its company. Being a complete cloud-enabled enterprise will eradicate the need of these services. Enterprises have to make a complete paradigm shift for their current IT services and concentrate more on having a total cloud-enabled environment. In return, the cloud-enabled service ensures that the company receives an improved response for their clients and business as well as superior agility, healthier delivery channels, and more affordable services. Taking over a service in business may help it grow further at a faster rate. Sometimes, letting an automated service work for you might be the only option available.
Now that we have a brief idea of what each development service delivers, time to address the elephant in the room and answer this simple question, What are the differences between these three? Some points well enough to segregate these three technologies are noted below.
Design
Cloud-native was designed with an intention to deploy the cloud harnessing micro-service focused principles which can natively adopt full cloud scalability and accessibility. On the contrary, cloud-enabled and cloud-ready platforms were intended to be locally-hosted and were expected to be pinched just to fill the gaps in the cloud by expandability in order to take complete advantage of the cloud. Design factor plays a crucial role in deciding which one of these platforms can be instrumental in managing specific environments on the cloud.
Scalability
Native development comes with predefined components which are instrumental for running applications and services on its end. But on the other hand, both cloud-based and cloud-enabled development has users who wish to select from a variety of components that can be beneficial for their business. Scalability is likely to happen for all the three technologies but cloud-native has an advantage over the other two. Cloud-native can easily accommodate more services under its belt by meeting the expectations of both consumers and business and at times, might even surpass their expectations. The other two provide options and features that can help the business grow but not out of their comfort zone. If a business decides to expand, they need to upgrade their infrastructure to make room for more services if they have opted for cloud-based or cloud-enabled.
Cost
Many medium-sized organizations opt for cloud-enabled or cloud-based services, which depending on their business, may be sufficient for their business goals. Cloud-native is preferred by large enterprises and multinational corporations to manage the big infrastructure and ease out the pressure of the business. There are instances when the cloud-enablers want to expand their horizons and introduce new services and applications. This is when they have to incur extra cost to introduce new features. Could-native users are always insured as they have all the premium services to shoulder the giant workload of their business.
Maintenance
Maintaining a cloud-native platform is easy and requires little to no effort. It is automated from the service provider as and when updates are required. It maintains a stress-free environment. Cloud-based service requires the user to check and maintain timely updates to keep up with the speed and developments prescribed by the company guidelines. They need to be serviced and checked from time to time for any faults or discrepancies. Similarly, for the cloud-enabled platform, the user has the responsibility to look after the server and carry routine checks and updates.
Uptime
Uptimes for all the three platforms can be deemed as substantially good and consistent. At times, big businesses need 99.9% uptime for their business needs and obligations. Hence, they prefer cloud-native over others as it has scalable architecture and can withstand the heavy workload capacity of business at any given point in time. Whereas, cloud-based and cloud-enabled are entitled enough to perform great uptimes but lack of their scalable nature makes them less preferable.
Conclusion
In general, both big and small enterprises need cloud-based infrastructure to accelerate and nurture the proposed business requirements and reach their maximum potential. The above pointers give us a clear indication that a cloud-native infrastructure will be paramount for any business to expand and advance beyond its expectations. Businesses are growing at an exponential rate nowadays which propels us to take full advantage of these premium services.
Enabling a better and more fundamental environment for our business reservations and extending them to a whole new perspective gives us a bitter taste of our business ideas. But at the same time, it makes us ask the important question: do we have enough expertise in our collective strategy to tackle the business challenges that plague us from time to time or do we need to build a bigger and better system to accommodate more of these ideas which can accelerate the current scenario and be effective in the future implementations too. Clearly, cloud-computing based developments have taken our businesses to new heights and leveraged it with our current business goals.Haven't moved to the cloud yet? At Architech we specialize in delivering cloud-native applications. Contact us to jumpstart your journey.
