Cloud Application Development: Definition & Trends

The statistical data suggests that the global cloud application market has a value of 146,6 billion USD in 2022, and it is projected to reach 168,6 USD by the end of 2025. At the same time, 75% of CFOs plan to implement an agile business system using cloud solutions in the upcoming years.

These figures prompt that cloud computing and development are now at the peak of their popularity and will earn even more advocates within a few years.
Considering these facts, it’s never too late to learn more about cloud application development, what benefits it may have for your business, and what trends have been established in the market. This article will cover these things and explain why cloud computing and development is the technology you should not overlook in the high-paced world.

What Is Cloud Computing?

Amazon Web Services, one of the leading cloud development platforms, defines cloud computing as the on-demand delivery of IT services over the Internet network. It usually involves pay-as-you-go pricing and allows the business to stay agile, cost-effective, and smart. Instead of managing physical servers, data centers, or other hardware, the company can pay for access to technology services like storage, databases, computing power, and more on an as-needed basis.

Another cloud platform, Microsoft Azure, states that cloud computing is the delivery of computing services, which include storage, servers, database, networks, and more. The services are usually provided over the Internet at a defined fee, which allows to get flexible resources, innovate faster, save costs, and scale easily.

In other words, cloud computing refers to the services hosted over the Internet. It involves sharing/outsourcing computing resources like databases, networks, servers, storage, and more with other parties. In this way, companies can gain a high level of agility, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency.

What Is Cloud Development?

Staying competitive and innovative is imperative for businesses that want to thrive in a modern realm. Cloud based application development is a great way to take the business forward and reach objectives through agile and easy-to-access apps while saving the organization’s budget.

For example, the DCG report suggests that enterprises generally save 15% to 40% of IT operating costs as they migrate to the cloud. This is a great advantage considering the bonus of a whopping 42 percent of performance improvement, faster product development and deployment, automatic performance upgrades, and more.

As you see, cloud technology is highly beneficial for companies (we will cover more advantages of this computing system further in this article). However, the popularity of cloud solutions development doesn’t spare this industry from confusion and misconceptions. The next subsections will unveil the difference between core development technologies that prevail in the market.

How Is Cloud Development Different From Traditional Software Development?

With the popularity of cloud development services, some may assume that traditional software development is no longer relevant for businesses. But this statement is debatable as both approaches have their pros and cons.

So, traditional development involves building, testing, and running the apps on physical data centers. Within this development approach, the data is stored and can be accessed by limited users through the network it is connected with. In this way, users can access app data through the local physical system in which data is stored.

When it comes to cloud development, a cloud developer writes a code that is deployed and run in a collective combination of configurable system resources hosted by a third party and which can be accessed over the Internet.

Cloud-Based and Cloud-Native Development – Is It The Same Thing?

There are a lot of ‘cloudy’ terms out there, but not all of them mean the same thing. For example, cloud-based and cloud-native development practices are not the same. Let’s see what is cloud native development and cloud-based development and what sets them apart.

What Is Cloud Native Application Development?

Cloud native application development involves building an app specifically for the cloud environment. Usually, they run on public cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and others or can be architectured in a private cloud. Because of their nature, cloud-native environments call for new infrastructure in app design and administration. This architecture is known as a microservice.
A microservice is an architectural approach in cloud native development that involves building an application from a set of smaller independent services, which communicate via APIs. This strategy enhances flexibility and simplifies the process of app development by enabling code reusability.

What Is Cloud-Based Application Development?

When it comes to ​​cloud based web application development, they are not designed with the same objective of being launched and run on the cloud. On the contrary, this app development approach works when you already have legacy software hosted on a local server but want to benefit from some of the cloud perks like easy scalability and data availability. Hence, you move it to the cloud platform. In this way, there is no need to completely redesign your app. You just make your local and cloud-based components work together.

Cloud Market Overview & Development Trends

How Many Types of Cloud Service Development Are There?

Those organizations that consider moving their legacy app to the cloud or building a custom app in this environment should be aware of three basic terms representing the types of cloud services:

• IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service)
• PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)
• SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)

These three cloud service types suggest different ways how businesses can leverage this technology based on their resources and needs. So, let’s take a quick look at each of them.

IaaS as a Way to Cut the Operational Cost and Gain Scalability

With an IaaS cloud model to develop and deploy application, the company outsources the whole cloud infrastructure from the vendor, including servers, networks, databases, and virtualization. In this way, the cloud IaaS service provider takes care of the hardware, servers, storage, and more, while your company gets remote access to these resources on a pay-as-you-use model.

This way, the company scales easily on demand and cuts the operational cost by reducing the need to maintain local hardware since it is hosted on-site. Because of this, this solution is an excellent choice for small and mid-sized organizations that seek new opportunities for business growth and scaling.

PaaS and When Your Business Will Benefit from This Service

When you have an in-house team with solid cloud computing developer skills or would like to hire a seasoned company to build a custom cloud application, the PaaS model will be a good solution.

PaaS providers equip developers with the platform, frameworks, and toolkit for building cloud software, which is accessible through the Internet. This solution has its advantages, as engineers can deliver custom applications much faster and at a lower cost. They usually use frameworks with chunks of code, so creating software from scratch is not necessary.

How Is the Development of SaaS Related to Cloud Computing?

SaaS is one of the most popular cloud services. It offers software as a product, which is available over the Internet for a monthly or annual subscription fee.
If you are at the outset of your business journey and are not ready to invest in custom cloud website development services, this cloud model is a good choice for you. The vendor maintains the app, releases new versions, ensures its security, and more so that you do not have to allocate a budget for these expenditures. At the same time, you access app functionality your staff needs to handle their job responsibilities more effectively.

Types of Cloud Computing: Public, Private, Hybrid

When you talk about cloud computing, you can get confused pretty quickly. As it turns out, there are four main types of cloud computing:

• Public
• Private
• Hybrid
• Community

What Stands Behind Public Cloud Computing?

The public cloud involves the distribution of cloud infrastructure between end users that do not own one. In this way, cloud resources like networks, servers, and memory are open to everyone to store and access data over the Internet. Popular public platforms include AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba, and others.

The cloud infrastructure resources are hosted and maintained by vendors who globally distribute them among tenants on a pay-as-you-go basis. This way, you do not need to maintain in-house hardware, which leads to great cost-saving and allows the internal IT team (if any) to focus on more value-added tasks. Also, it gets easier to scale the number of resources you receive from the vendor. This can be especially handy for seasonal businesses or ones whose needs frequently fluctuate.

Does a Private Cloud Require the Use of Custom Developed Software?

Unlike public cloud computing with a shared environment, a private cloud gives access to network, storage, and database only to one user/organization. While hardware can be hosted on-site or on-premise, you gain full control over your infrastructure and can customize your resources to meet specific IT requirements. Literally, you can customize hardware and software, including your custom-built apps. However, this cloud type doesn’t necessarily require custom-developed digital products.

The greatest thing about private cloud solutions is the strict control over data, thus, its security. This cloud model clearly defines who has access to information, preventing public access and breaches. Also, you get superior customization, which allows you to scale up and down relative flawlessly, but not as easily as in a public cloud. When your company decides to scale, the cloud infrastructure provider will add additional tiers of hardware used only by your business.

What Is a Hybrid Cloud and When It Is Advantageous for the Business?

A hybrid cloud computing melts elements of public and private clouds. In other words, cloud infrastructure is deployed across public and private clouds, so some of its resources are publicly available, while others are meant for internal use only. This way, the company uses the best of two worlds and unlocks a new way to improve performance, economic sustainability, and flexibility.

This is a common solution for companies that have multiple, complex datasets with a blend of sensitive data that should remain discreet and general data available to the public. As you can choose what data to store in a public or private cloud with this cloud model, you dramatically improve security by keeping sensitive information in the private cloud.

So, considering the above-mentioned advantages of this cloud model, it is the most beneficial for businesses that want to split data into sensitive and general categories for smarter resource use and advanced security.

How Is a Community Cloud Defined?

A community cloud is a type of cloud infrastructure where multiple organizations share resources and services based on shared operational and regulatory requirements. Every member of the cloud gets a certain amount of storage and bandwidth, which is considered optimal for satisfying the company’s demand. This makes the ability to scale a little bit more complicated as there may be limits on how many additional resources you may get.

The critical criterion for the ability to share a single cloud infrastructure is common business requirements driven by the need for shared data, services, or industry regulations. It means that a community cloud is a winning option for companies within the same industry or department. Growing organizations in the health, financial, legal, and educational sectors will benefit from sharing a single cloud infrastructure as they are mostly affected by various regulations. This solution allows sharing servers or other resources to fulfill the same requirements across various organizations.

Business Value of Cloud-Enabled DevOps

An overwhelming number of custom cloud application development projects employ DevOps, which involves automating the routine IT operations to achieve greater speed and cost-efficiency of operations, undoubtedly leading to more value the cloud development company delivers to the Customer.

DevOps involves agile and lean methodologies with some degree of automation. This allows developers to shorten the app delivery lifecycle and stay responsive to the changing project requirements. With this development practice, engineers can rapidly move the code from development to production. Also, it enables continuous delivery, which is essential for growing companies with huge ambitions.

At the same time, the cloud is a favorable environment for implementing DevOps projects. Cloud infrastructure implies that the resources are quickly available for the activities throughout the whole app development lifecycle without needing to maintain them physically. So, engineers can shift their attention to business-specific values instead of patching OS or provisioning hardware.

Considering the nature of the cloud and DevOps methodology, they make a perfect combination for organizations striving to gain better agility and performance through IT. In view of this, let’s see what value this combination may bring to your business.

Cover the Gap Between What the Company Needs and Can Do

According to the New Harvard Business Review Analytic Services Study, the need to build and implement new digital solutions quickly has never been so urgent. 86% of respondents that took part in the survey said they saw the importance of rapidly developing and releasing new software into production. However, only 10% confirmed that their companies are good at this. So, there is a gap between what the market dictates and how companies respond. A synergy of cloud computing technology and DevOps can help tackle this issue by delivering the instruments for a much faster speed to market.

More Ways How DevOps Pays Off

Other benefits of application development in cloud computing with the use of DevOps practices include better project results. It comes as no surprise that these projects prove to be more innovative and relevant to the customers. Companies see a massive positive shift in productivity and product/service quality. Moreover, this solution also affects the project cost – 54% of respondents noticed that they spent less on getting a custom cloud-enabled app with the DevOps practice. Undoubtedly, these factors have a direct effect on the organization’s revenue.

Relationship Between IoT Industry And The Cloud

IoT and cloud computing are one of the most popular tech services delivered these days. Even though these technologies have different functionalities, they are symbiotic in their nature. The IoT Analytics suggests that 80% of global public cloud services delivered by hyperscalers (AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud) go for IoT workloads.

The common use of cloud and IoT inspired the emergency of a new service – IoT cloud. There are three main service categories, which include:

• IoT application management – services that enable developers to build and maintain IoT apps. They include rule engines, IoT development environments, and digital twins.
• IoT device management – services that ensure IoT devices and software connect and work properly. They incorporate asset monitoring, firmware updates, updates, and more.
• IoT data management – services that deliver capabilities for storing, processing, and analyzing IoT data.

Cloud Software Development Opportunities for Businesses

Better Standardization

As we’ve already mentioned, cloud app development involves the implementation of progressive disaggregation. In simple words, it means that an app is made of smaller components to achieve faster app delivery, allow code reusability, and enable the split of functionalities. This approach also helps to escape the issue of hardware and operating systems differences, which contribute to better standardization.

Besides, code frameworks and libraries have gained popularity, making cloud native development with Node JS, Angular, React, and other languages much easier. They standardize chunks of code by making them publicly available to developers who want to add specific functionality.

Improved Team Collaboration

Cloud computing improves the communication between the developers so that they can do their job more effectively and in less time. It gives an option to share the working cloud environment with colleagues, meaning that team members can be more productive and helpful.

Cultivating DevOps Practices

If your organization would like to benefit from a rapid custom app delivery, the combination of cloud computing services and DevOps is what will help you reach your objectives. As cloud infrastructure enables easy access to its resources to all team members and it promotes agility so you can get space for implementing the continuous delivery approach, DevOps engineers will get all they need to do their work effectively.

Higher App Quality at Lower Cost

Cloud app development allows delivering first-rate software at a reduced cost. First, frameworks and libraries provide developers with ready-made, bug-free code chunks that they can use to shorten the development time. Also, cloud infrastructure, especially the public one, allocates resources one can adjust to the needs of enterprise software development in cloud. When the app functionality grows, you may need extra space, which a cloud provider will promptly deliver. Finally, with options of private, public, hybrid, and community clouds, you can easily pick the model that meets your organization’s culture, policy, needs, and possibilities.

What Are the Features of Cloud Computing?

As you already know, cloud computing comes in different forms. Despite this, there is a constellation of features that set cloud computing apart.

On-Demand Self-Service

A on-demand self-service is a good feature, which is especially inherent to public clouds. It means that the vendor handles peak usage automatically, so you do not have to request and wait for a response from the administrator when you need to access more cloud infrastructure resources. So, when you run out of resources your organization uses, the cloud service provider will automatically scale them to more capacity. This allows you to avoid costly downtime due to the lack of space or other resources.

Multi-Tenancy

One of the greatest things about the cloud is that it offers provisional and scalable services to multiple tenants. It means that the vendor’s hardware, resources, and space are pooled by several customers simultaneously (except in the private cloud). This allows tenants to get business-critical resources at a lower cost than maintaining the IT infrastructure on-premise.

Scalability:

Of course, it depends on the cloud type, but cloud computing offers more space for scalability. As you already know, the public cloud delivers the highest level of scalability. You can cater to the resources you get from the cloud service provider based on your business needs, market fluctuations, and other factors. This comes especially handy when you, for example, predict a potential decrease or increase in traffic during a specific sales season.

Service Measurability

It’s easy to define how many resources you use in cloud computing. Since cloud service providers offer a pay-as-you-go model, you pay only for the resources you use. This way, you distribute the company’s budget wisely by always knowing how much you are going to pay regularly or when your demand grows.

Cloud Service Development Pros and Cons Explained

While many organizations choose cloud database development to save money, there are other benefits that will positively impact the business. At the same time, you’ve got to be mindful of nuances that may cause minor challenges if you decide to move to the cloud.

Benefits of Cloud App Development

Innovation

It’s easy to be innovative when you develop software in the cloud. It equips engineers with a feature-rich environment that enables them to bring out-of-the-box solutions to life. Whether it’s an IaaS or PaaS approach, developers gain the infrastructure and tools they need to swiftly build, deploy, integrate, and maintain custom cloud apps that disrupt the market.

Short Time to Market

Cloud computing paves the route to a faster app delivery and release. Since cloud platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and others remove infrastructure distractions and provide an effective development stack for faster coding and testing, the delivery time of custom apps significantly diminishes.

Elasticity

If your needs for IT resources frequently fluctuate, you win in many ways when you move to the cloud. This technology allows you to outsource any volume of cloud infrastructure your business requires for uninterrupted operation. The cost of downtime can be dramatic, so the cloud ensures your critical assets do not stop working by letting you use any amount of resources you need to cover the demand.

Uptime Guarantees

Server or network failure can be a disaster for the business. Even if these assets stop working for 10 minutes, this can lead to severe financial losses. By moving to the cloud, you reduce the risk of systems failure to a minimum. Reputable vendors guarantee up to 99.9% uptime as they have enough resources to invest in infrastructure maintenance.

What Are Pitfalls Concerning Cloud Application Development?

Culture Change

The move to cloud-based solutions will inevitably lead to the need to reconsider internal workflows, roles, and even the whole team structure. Even though these changes are going to be for the better, this still may take some time and put employees to stress.

Skills Gap

If your existing IT team didn’t have a chance to build apps in the cloud, this will prompt you to consider several solutions. First, you may invest in their training, but then the app delivery time will take a while. Also, they will not be as profound in this as engineers with a solid cloud app development background. Second, hiring a seasoned cloud app development company like HebronSoft is a wise idea that will ensure a swift software release.

Legacy Infrastructure and Applications

If you already have legacy systems or applications, they may intertwine with a cloud infrastructure. This way, you will need to move them to the cloud. It’s not critical and manageable, but it may involve additional cost and time. The HebronSoft team is qualified at moving legacy systems to the cloud, so we will do it professionally and without delays.

Security

If you decide to build an app in a private cloud, this may involve security risks. The public cloud makes data available to everyone, so it’s not the best place to store sensitive data. To overcome this issue, you can go with a private or hybrid cloud model.

What Is a Cloud Developer?

Cloud developers are those who specialize in cloud computing. They build applications using cloud platforms and then deploy those apps in the cloud. Cloud developer requirements involve general development skills and knowledge of at least one programming language, API design, databases, scripting, etc. On top of that, there are cloud development-specific skills, including DevOps, networking, scaling, microservices, system architecture & design, and so on.

What Does a Cloud Developer Do?

Generally speaking, cloud developers do the same things as traditional engineers. They build and deploy apps, except that they make them run on virtual systems. This may add additional job in terms of architecturing the systems and ensuring more robust security. Apart from this, cloud developers also ensure the effective design of business processes in the cloud. They monitor cloud maintenance and plan the use of resources across the company.

Cloud Application Developer Salary & Hourly Rates

The cloud professionals can make an overwhelmingly different sum of money depending on their experience and location.

The highest tech salaries are in the USA. An average cloud developer makes $125,501 annually, while most experienced workers make up to $158,898 per year. It means that the hourly rate makes $64,36.

The cloud developer salary in EU countries differs from country to country. It is explained by various levels of well-being, which affect the range of salaries. For example, Swish cloud engineers are the most expensive in the EU market as they earn around $83,000 per year. Annual cloud developer salaries in Germany, Sweden, and Israel range between $53,000 and $64,000. Norwegian developers make around $72,000 every year.

The Ukrainian tech market is the most affordable as the salaries are much lower than in the USA or Europe. The average hourly rate for software development in Ukraine is within $25–50. Thus, the average annual software developer salary varies between $24,000 and $48,000. Ukrainian developers are in great demand now as they prove to be qualified for a wide range of cloud projects of different complexity levels.

Conclusion

Cloud app development popularity grows at a whopping pace. It allows companies to innovate and become more efficient through different cloud models and services. Whether you require total data isolation or need a cloud platform to build an app from scratch, you will get what you need in the cloud. At the same time, you may leverage shared infrastructure resources’ perks to run your custom apps and cut your tech expenditures.

If you understand the need for a custom cloud app or would like to move your legacy software to the cloud, the HebronSoft team is here to share our profound expertise and deep knowledge in this niche. We’ve been delivering cloud development solutions for more than 5 years, so we know how to bring value to your business within the required time frame and budget. If you need help or would like to know more about how our company can help you thrive with a new digital product, do not hesitate to contact us.