Finding The Right Cloud Provider For Cloud Native App

Cloud native applications are usually the applications which are designed specifically for being used in the cloud. This transformation of traditional application to cloud native application or developing cloud native applications can be done in various ways. Commonly the process includes a service-oriented approach. In such cases, the functionalities are kept within in services, which are communicate using the REST API. Questions around infrastructure, platform services and cost play a decisive role while finding the right cloud provider for cloud native app. Cloud computing providing new opportunities on the other hand throwing new unforeseen security challenges too. Often a micro service-oriented architecture is used for the cloud native applications and the application is often delivered in the containers. Sometimes development teams are responsible for both the development and operation.

We had two older articles on the similar topic – determining the right cloud provider, selecting the right cloud computing model based on security and privacy. It is agreeable that articles published on 2012, 2013 is not enough in 2017 which explains the need of this article.

Finding The Right Cloud Provider For Cloud Native App

Choosing any service provider is not an easy work. One of the barrier is the need of thorough overall knowledge of the currently available services at the same cost by the other providers. In general, for this topic, we need to answer a number of considerations :

1. Considering the location requirements of data center
2. Considering the need of global infrastructure
3. Considering the need of automation for the provisioning of resources
4. Considering the cloud offer for cloud native application
5. Considering the types of available services for the project
6. Considering the operating cost of running the application in the cloud

In addition, it is worth checking how helpful the documentation of the service provider is and what resources are available to developers. One must consider the quality of support offered by the provider and the availability of external service providers. Of course, it is a good point provider has an online community of the users. An exchange and communication with the other users can open up more business opportunities. We found this infographics to be useful to the readers :

It is a big matter to think around the cloud computing service models – Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) factually serve the same purpose that of low cost dedicated server, Platform as a Service (PaaS) has a different need and usage, recently we talked about Function as a Service, which is another model. Function as a Service is often used in event-driven architectures. Some providers offer a free usage. Some vendors allow creation of an account without a credit card. Usually the free resources are limited but sufficient for experiments.

Going Beyond The Basic Need Of Finding The Right Cloud Provider For Cloud Native App

The building blocks of typical cloud native applications are Object Storage for storing data, Relational or NoSQL databases, Messaging, APIs, Monitoring. The question of integrating the cloud native application with artificial intelligence, machine learning becoming suddenly practical. Also, if the application somehow related to big data, there is need of giving more weightage to few providers.