Louise Westoby

<p>Historically, software was monolithic. In most cases, development teams would have to rewrite or rebuild an entire application to fix a bug or add a new feature. Building applications with any sense of speed or agility was largely out of the question, which is why software suites like Microsoft Office were generally released once a year.</p>

<p>Much has changed over the last decade or so. In the age of lightning-fast networks and instant gratification, leading software development teams are adopting DevOps workflows and prioritizing CI/CD so they can pump out stronger software releases much faster and much more frequently.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Monthly, weekly, or even more frequent releases, for example, are becoming something closer to the norm.&nbsp;</p>

<p>This accelerated release process is the result of the fact that—over several years—it’s become much easier to develop applications.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Today, many engineering teams are utilizing new technologies to build better applications in less time, developing software with agility. Let’s take a look at four of the key technologies that have largely transformed the development process in recent years.&nbsp;</p>

<h2>1. Microservices</h2>

<p><a href="https://www.datastax.com/resources/whitepapers/four-key-technologies-that-enable-microservices">Microservices</a>&nbsp;enable development teams to build applications that—you guessed it—are made up of several smaller services.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Compared to the old-school monolithic approach, microservices speed up the development process considerably. Engineers can scale microservices independently of one another; updating or adding a feature no longer requires an entire rewrite of an application.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Beyond that,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.datastax.com/2019/04/the-five-ways-microservices-are-changing-business">microservices also bring more flexibility</a>&nbsp;to developers. For example, developers can use their language of choice, building one service in Java and another in Node.js.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The speed, flexibility, and agility microservices bring to the table have made it much easier to develop modern applications. Add it all up, and it comes as no surprise that a recent survey found that 91 percent of companies&nbsp;<a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/05/02/1494613/0/en/New-Research-Reveals-Record-Growth-in-Microservices-Is-Disrupting-the-Operational-Landscape.html">are using or plan to use microservices today</a>.</p>

<h2>2. Containers</h2>

<p>Containers (think Docker) go hand-in-hand with microservices. Using containers, developers can create, deploy, and run applications in any environment.</p>

<p>At a very basic level,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.datastax.com/2019/07/understanding-containers-a-brief-guide">containers</a>&nbsp;let developers “package” an application’s code and dependencies together as one unit. Once that package has been created, it can quickly be moved from a container to a laptop to a virtual server and back again. Containers enable developers to start, create, copy, and spin down applications rapidly.</p>

<p>It’s even easier to build modern applications with containers when you use&nbsp;<a href="https://www.datastax.com/2019/07/how-kubernetes-powers-data-management">Kubernetes</a>&nbsp;to manage containerized workloads and services.</p>

<h2>3. Open source tools</h2>

<p>Docker and Kubernetes are both open source. So are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.datastax.com/why-datastax/apache-cassandra">Apache Cassandra™</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://prometheus.io/">Prometheus</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://grafana.com/">Grafana</a>. There’s also&nbsp;<a href="https://jenkins.io/">Jenkins</a>, too, which helps developers accelerate CI/CD workflows. With Jenkins, engineering teams can use automation to safely build, test, and deploy code changes, making it easier to integrate new features into any project.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.datastax.com/2019/06/why-open-source-is-both-the-past-and-the-future">Open source tools</a>&nbsp;simplify the development process considerably. With open-source, engineering teams get access to proven technologies that are built collaboratively by developers around the world to improve the coding process.</p>

<p>Not only does open-source provide access to these tools, popular open-source projects also have robust user communities that developers can turn to when they get stuck on something.&nbsp;</p>

<h2>4. Hybrid cloud</h2>

<p>More and more companies are building applications in&nbsp;<a href="/solutions/hybrid-multi-cloud">hybrid cloud environments</a>&nbsp;because it enables them to leverage the best of what both the public and private cloud have to offer.&nbsp;</p>

<p>For example, with hybrid cloud, you get the scalability of the public cloud while being able to use on-premises or private cloud resources to keep sensitive data secure (e.g., for HIPAA or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.datastax.com/2018/04/datastax-and-the-new-gdpr">GDPR compliance</a>). What’s more,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.datastax.com/2019/07/the-four-cloud-technology-trends-to-watch-out-for">hybrid cloud</a>&nbsp;also increases availability. In the event one provider gets knocked offline, application performance remains unchanged—so long as you&nbsp;<a href="/products/datastax-enterprise">have the right database in place</a>.</p>

<p>The same sentiment holds true for&nbsp;multi-cloud or intercloud environments&nbsp;where organizations use several different cloud vendors to take advantage of each of their strengths, avoid vendor lock-in, or reduce the risk of service disruption.&nbsp;</p>

<h2>How does your development process compare?</h2>

<p>If you’re not using microservices, containers, open source tools, and hybrid cloud environments to build applications, it’s time to reconsider your approach.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The rise of these new technologies has given development teams the ability to pivot at a moment’s notice, incorporating user feedback to build new features and respond to incidents quickly and effectively.</p>

<p>Give them a try. It’s only a matter of time before you’ll start wondering why you didn’t think of it sooner.</p>


Why Developing Modern Applications Is Getting Easier

Louise Westoby

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