Serverless cloud technology is the way for ISVs to reach more customers while maintaining the same high-quality experience across users. Developing using containers improves this efficiency by reducing the need for virtual machines. Azure and Kubernetes come together to facilitate this scalability.
The advent of cloud virtualisation has brought efficiencies for independent software vendors around the world. Without the requirement of physical machines or servers, applications can easily be scaled and accessed by effectively a limitless number of customers. ISVs with a global footprint need to be able to manage applications across multiple geographical locations, which they can do through the cloud. In a recent StackOverflow article by Adam Konrád, he shared that “The serverless application model helps you spin up your application stack and easily organize and manage the state of cloud resources associated with your application” (StackOverflow, 2020). Microsoft Azure has opened ISVs up to a new range of customers and increased growth.
This has been taken further through the development of containers, which remove the requirement of virtual machines and allow various applications to run concurrently. Rather than replicating the virtual machine, containers allow the operating system to be emulated. This is what the applications run on.
Containerization of systems through Microsoft Azure and Azure Kubernetes Services can help organisations to scale various applications over many users efficiently. Clusters of virtual machines are orchestrated by Kubernetes running various containers. The containerization of applications and implementation of serverless technologies bring many benefits to ISVs, ranging from efficiencies to economies of scale.
Building on Azure using Kubernetes is efficient. Changes or updates to applications can be deployed in real-time reducing downtime for customers. As Kubernetes is serverless, capacity can be used as needed. Also, issues or feedback can be quickly identified and fixed for customers.
While there are costs involved, there are significant economies of scale. At its core, containers ensure that resources are not wasted. Using containers to run applications is very cost effective compared to servers or even virtual machines. Kubernetes supports the ability to run multiple applications concurrently on containers. Additionally, Azure allows ISVs to set SLAs and view costs.
Autoscaling supports optimal performance. There are two ways that Azure scales, offering multiple efficiencies for ISVs as they grow their business. The ability to scale vertically, or scale up, adds the necessary cloud resources to manage volume or performance. Cloud capacity can be scaled to meet demand as the application reaches more customers, orchestrated on containers.
With Azure powering containers, ISVs can leverage Azure’s ability to autoscale – scaling vertically and horizontally as required. The elasticity of the cloud supports the allocation of cloud resources based on volume, memory and performance demands. When needed, cloud resources are scaled up and then can be reduced when demand normalizes. Microsoft shares that autoscale “allows you to add resources to handle increases in load and also save money by removing resources that are sitting idle”.
Scaling horizontally or out allows for additional instances. This is akin to building duplicates of your application, which can be easily achieved using Kubernetes. This is important as the user base grows as your application will be able to manage the increased load. This can be monitored in various Azure pricing tiers, ensuring that ISVs have total cost transparency. This is very important for ISVs looking to scale their business exponentially.
Microsoft Azure is an “enterprise grade foundation”. From a technical perspective, choosing to build applications using AzureDevOps and Kubernetes means that ISVs gain the benefits of the robust global cloud infrastructure. Building and managing your application through Azure and Kubernetes means that ISVs can benefit from the various securities and monitoring features provided by Microsoft Azure. Additionally, from a developer perspective, containers support the agile and CI/CD processes of developing applications. Similar to all Azure applications, testing is also very efficient, and developers can push changes easily.
Many organisations are choosing to develop applications this way, maintaining control while increasing capacity and reaching more users. In a Microsoft case study featuring the Norweigan power grid operator, Hafslund Nett, shifted from their legacy system to building a platform in Azure using Kubernetes. Speaking about making this move Chief Technology Officer Ståle Heitmann shared “We wanted a platform to speed development and testing but do it safely, without losing control over security and performance. That’s why Azure and AKS (Azure Kubernetes Services) are the perfect fit for us” (Microsoft, 2018).
For ISVs choosing to migrate to a robust and autoscaling serverless Azure environment and building Kubernetes applications, they can achieve unprecedented scale and growth. Reach more customers and scale faster while managing quality and customer feedback.
Talk to Spanish Point Technologies about taking the first steps in your serverless cloud migration journey.
