Cloud servers enable you to scale resources in either direction depending on demand, and you can optimize IT performance without paying huge costs. Because of the nature of the cloud, it is suitable for certain applications that would be difficult to build on-site.
A distributed system is a network of multiple linked servers, forming clusters that share data and coordinates processing power. Distributed systems offer improved scalability, uncapped performance, and great cost-effectiveness over time – although, it may require high initial investments.
Distributed systems can be built on-premise, but creating a cloud-based one comes with huge benefits:
Solution 1: Creating a Cloud-Based Distributed System
- Cost-efficiency: As with any cloud model, you are saving on infrastructure and the cost of maintenance teams.
- Auto-Updates: Using managed services to build distributed systems makes software integration and updates take place automatically, taking the burden of customizing and integrating applications off your shoulders.
- Easier scalability: You can connect new hardware to the cluster or disable hardware just with a click of the mouse. It can even be set up to scale automatically based on performance.
- Low latency: Operations will become physically closer to the customers through the distributed system. Performance is improved, and network-related outages are reduced.
Checklist: Is a distributed system right for you?
- Would you be able to utilize the computational power of a cluster?
- Do your resources need to be brought closer to local users?
- Are your customers geographically diverse?
- Do you have a huge monolith application that is hard to maintain?
Solution 2: Serverless Computing
Serverless computing is a method of supplying backend services on an as-used basis. The serverless provider lets clients write and deploy code without needing to worry about the underlying infrastructure. When you get backend services from a serverless vendor, you are charged based on computation. You don’t have to pay for a fixed number of servers or amount of bandwidth.
All the selling points of serverless computing align perfectly with the cloud model strong points:
- Simplified scalability: Developers don’t need to worry about scaling up their code. The vendor handles the scaling on demand – so, serverless applications can handle unusually high numbers of requests just as well as a single request.
- Quicker turnaround: By using serverless architecture, you can significantly reduce the time-to-market. Rather than going through a length, complex deploy process for bug fixes and feature rollouts, developers can modify and add code on a piecemeal basis.
- Greater affordability: Serverless computing’s payment model is essentially a “pay-as-you-go” plan. You’re only charged for what you use; some services even break down charges to 1-millisecond increments.
Checklist: Is serverless computing right for you?
- Do you need to decrease your go-to-market time?
- Will your applications need to be expanded or updated quickly?
- Do you already run your platform in the cloud but only use traditional virtual instances?
Solution 3: Simplified IT
Maintaining computer software and hardware is, quite literally, a full-time job. But when you switch to the cloud, your company no longer needs to spend time and resources maintaining equipment that isn’t making direct contributions to your business objectives. Your cloud vendor takes care of the underlying infrastructure – so your tech specialists can focus on achieving business goals.
Specifically, which IT processes are simplified by the cloud?
- Physical and network-level security: A cloud server guarantees top-of-the line physical security. Many large-scale DDoS attacks are defeated at the data-center level without ever affecting the performance of your resources.
- Monitoring and scaling tasks: Very often, cloud providers offer some variations of pay-as-you-use plans with easy autoscaling possibilities. It allows you to spend less time on performance monitoring and planning for future expansion.
- Saving resources: Maintenance of the hardware itself requires a precious time of experience staff. When the cloud provider takes care of all the hardware maintenance, your employees can dedicate their full time to business objectives.
Checklist: Are you ready for IT simplification through Infrastructure as a Service?
- Do you find yourself spending excessive time and resources on infrastructure maintenance?
- Would you like to eliminate capital expenditure and reduce your ongoing costs?
- Do you need a better disaster recovery plan?
Solution 4: Continuous Deployment
Continuous deployment (CD) goes one step further than continuous delivery. It’s a software release process that automatically tests and validates whether changes to a codebase are correct, and whether it is stable enough to be automatically deployed to production. With continuous deployment, you can get daily releases and no deployment downtime, while simultaneously eliminating manual regression testing.
So, where does the cloud come into play? Cloud providers offer CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) tools, enabling developers to easily set up a deployment pipeline. For instance, AWS CodePipeline, CodeDeploy, CodeBuild, CloudFormation services: these services allow developers to:
- Build applications
- Run unit/integration tests
- Deploy applications to various runtimes using different deployment strategies
- Create all the necessary resources to run the application
- Run automation tests against the staging and production environment
- Rollback changes if there are any issues during deployment
Advantages of continuous deployment include:
- Easier access to more infrastructure resources allows you to create multiple environments. In the cloud, you can easily make an exact copy of your production deployment to test a new feature and roll it out to a limited number of users for testing.
- Cloud monitoring tools allow quick reactions to any unforeseen consequences. Combined with the great backup possibilities that the cloud provides, you will be able to make a quick recovery.
- In the cloud, you are not limited by the sheer number of hardware machines. You will be able to distribute your application logic across many microservices, making fault isolation and recovery easier.
Checklist: Is a cloud-based CD service right for you?
- Would you use a ready-made continuous deployment pipeline?
- Is your application currently running in the cloud?
- Does your application often need new features, bug fixes, and configuration changes?
- Do you have any manual steps in application delivery to production?
Simplify Complex Processes With the Cloud
The speed at which new cloud technologies and tools are emerging is accelerating rapidly. These four solutions are just a brief glimpse into how cloud services can simplify IT processes, save on costs, and power innovative solutions. The tech market is changing dynamically – to remain competitive, accelerate growth, and scale operations, switching to the cloud may be a wise choice.
