As the technology advances, so does the competition. Many organizations face this challenge of developing innovative applications at a fairly rapid speed. If they fail to do so, they end up losing their business. For ease in this situation, AWS platform provides services to host modern applications. Through this approach the businesses get trained to grab the opportunities and stay ahead in the game.

Modern AWS Applications and Innovation

The backbone of modern applications is a scalable infrastructure and AWS is able to provide this infrastructure to the users. Modern applications take full advantage of the advancements including cloud which makes it easier for the organizations in developing, deploying and scaling the solutions in a more efficient manner. It doesn’t matter whether the application uses serverless computing, containerization techniques or a micro-service architecture because AWS provides unlimited tools that help developers to build such cutting-edge applications.

Traditional Infrastructure Management – Challenges

The management of On-premise infrastructure is a very demanding task. Challenges such as large investments, hardware and software complexities, and long procurement cycles build obstacles in the way to innovate modern applications. IT team members were of the view that most of their time was being spent on the infrastructure-related issues rather than on the core business problems.

Focusing on Business Challenges

Newer approach works this way; AWS is responsible for all the infrastructure burden while the organizations can take the charge of solving business problems along with driving innovation. AWS possesses a cloud-based nature which helps in:

• Quick development cycles
• Faster delivery
• Agility

Identifying Business Problems and Opportunities

 Identifying business problems and opportunities go hand in hand. Although it is a crucial task, many organizations have started working on it. What is so special about this, you may ask. Well, let us guide you through. When the departments closely collaborate then all the issues come to the surface, both existing and untapped. As soon as you resolve the issue you will be able to gather more opportunities.

AWS is beneficial in this use case as well. It helps in identifying the business problems and challenges and grabbing the untapped opportunities. If the organization is willing to use cloud-native technologies then the application will not only fulfil your current needs but will also align itself with respect to the emerging trends.

Getting Familiar with Customer and Market Needs

 It is a common practice to first understand the customer’s and market needs before developing any application. Just like in a Google Sprint Cycle. The target audience should be continuously engaged with the organization for the sake of feedback. This approach makes sure that the developed application fulfils the market as well as the customer’s needs.

If you require additional help then remember that AWS is always at your service. It provides tools that help in identifying and analyzing customer and market requirements. Following tools are the top-ones to consider.

• Amazon S3 – For storing immense amount of data
• Amazon Quick Sight – For Business Intelligence

Identifying Automation Opportunities

 Automation plays a very important role when it comes to innovation and efficiency. There are many areas within the organizations’ processes where automation can be implemented to address business problems and side by side to unlock the new opportunities. This can be done by:

• Automating the tasks which are being repeated continuously
• Proper streamlining the workflows
• Enhancing the capabilities of data processing

Now you must be thinking whether AWS provides its services here as well? You are right! It provides lots of automation services for your ease among which few of them are:

• AWS Lambda – Serverless Computing
• Amazon SageMaker – Machine Learning Automation
• AWS Step Functions – Orchestrating Workflows

Mapping to a Modern Application Architecture

Getting shifted to a modern architecture is important. There are many reasons for it, like a modern architecture highlights reliability, agility along with scalability as the applications’ features. To follow such an architecture it is important to make use of cloud-native technologies and also the services which enable the adaptability to the changing business requirements. Of course, to make this happen you can always use Amazon Web Services. The organizations are able to build scalable applications with the help of AWS tools and services.

Event-Driven and Serverless Components like Lambda

For building modern applications, an event-driven architecture is always considered. Its dynamic response towards events and making applications more responsive is what makes it the best choice. An event-driven architecture is also used in building scalable applications and handling asynchronous processes.

AWS Lambda provides service for serverless computing. It allows the developers to run the code without managing the servers. When a serverless architecture is used then the operational overhead is also reduced by a significant amount. So the organization will not only have the development process sped up but will also have an optimized bill cost.

Scalable and Reliable Data Services like DynamoDB

 Data services play a very important role in modern applications. To be precise, they are considered as the backbone of such applications. Instead of traditional databases, it is better to go for NoSQL database service, DynamoDB, offered by AWS. This service will ensure that all the workload is handled with efficiency and ease.

DynamoDB possesses auto-scaling ability which automatically adapts to the changing requirements of modern applications. Along with this it also handles large amounts of datasets and provides real-time support to the applications.

Integration with Other Systems using API Gateway

 There is always a need to communicate with external systems no matter what the nature of the application is. An AWS service with the name AWS API Gateway makes this process much simpler. It provides great ease in the creation, publication and management of the APIs. Following this approach will help modern applications to perform a secure connection with other external systems.

A unified entry point is established using AWS API Gateway for secure data exchange and hurdle-free communication. API Gateway streamlines the whole integration process which enables the establishment of connection with third-party software or services or having communication between internal micro-services.

Developing Modern Applications

 When you need a modern application rather than a regular one then of course your development practices should also shift. Implementing DevOps principles along with other cloud-native technologies can speed up the development process by a significant amount of time. There should be a culture adopted by every organization where there is continuous collaboration and improvement to stay ahead of the game.

You can always take help of AWS services like AWS Lambda and Amazon ECS which will help you develop modern applications. These applications will be scalable and will be responsive to changing customer needs.

Code Deployment using CI/CD Pipelines

 The most important component of DevOps is building a CI/CD pipeline. It stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. All the development processes such as code integration, code testing and deployment are automated. This speeds up the development process, makes the code quality better and reduces the number of errors in the production phase.

In order to create a CI/CD pipeline you can use AWS tools like CodeBuild and CodePipeline. They help in creating robust pipelines. All the phases including; building, testing and deployment are automated and the developers are only responsible for writing the code.

Local Development and Testing Workflows

 Before deploying your application to the cloud it is important to check it locally on your machines. Your application should work with the same efficiency as you expect it to work on cloud. There are local development tools offered by AWS that help the developers to pinpoint the issue and resolve it locally. For such testing you can use AWS CodeStar and AWS Device Farm. However, AWS CodeStar is preferred for the purpose of collaborative coding and testing whereas AWS Device Farm is chosen when you want to do mobile app testing.

Automating Infrastructure Provisioning with CloudFormation

 IaC – Infrastructure as Code is a practice that helps in the management and provision of the infrastructure through code. Using this approach, the deployment of infrastructure gets automated which shows consistency across different environments. For this purpose AWS CloudFormation tool is used widely.

AWS CloudFormation automates the provisioning of resources such as networking components, EC2 instances and databases. Along with the streamlining of deployment processes, it also enhances scalability of the infrastructure. Changes can be rolled back easily using this service.

Operating Modern Applications

 Once the application has been developed, the next step is to operate it. While operating make sure that the health is maintained and they are exhibiting optimal performance. It is the need of the time for the organizations to adopt such strategies which align with the principles of responsiveness, reliability and scalability.

You can bring AWS CloudWatch in your use to have proper reports and logs of the application’s performance. This service identifies and troubleshoots the issues and ensures the continuous operation of the modern applications.

Automating Operations with CodeDeploy

 When the environments are diverse then deploying and updating applications become difficult. AWS CodeDeploy comes to the rescue and simplifies this process. Whenever any feature or new update is about to be introduced in the application then it has to be done in such a way that it doesn’t affect the existing working of the application. CodeDeploy helps organizations to roll out changes in an application efficiently. It reduces downtime and also lessens the risk of errors during the deployment process.

Security Best Practices

 No compromise can ever be made when it comes to modern applications which are hosted in cloud environments. It is essential for the organizations to implement strong security measures in order to gain the trust of the users. If you want, you can integrate the security measures with every stage of the application development lifecycle.

Organizations can use security services provided by AWS to implement security measures. Identity and access management can be handled using AWS IAM Identity Service and for the transit AWS Key Management Service is used.

Measuring Business Outcomes

 After doing a lot for your application, it is essential to know about the business outcomes. It is important to know the contribution of your application to business goals, overall organizational success along with user satisfaction. In order to do this, you can use AWS services like AWS CloudTrail along with Amazon CloudWatch. They help in tracking and analyzing KPIs through dashboards. Along with this, you can also be familiar with user behaviour, application performance and resource utilization by using these services.

A/B Testing New Features

 Sometimes there comes a situation when it becomes difficult to know which version of the feature performs better. To do this with ease, A/B testing techniques can be used which helps in the comparison of the features as well as in the optimization of the modern applications. To implement A/B testing you can use AWS Amplify and for user engagement use Amazon Pinpoint.

After successfully conducting A/B testing, you can use AWS services like Amazon QuickSight and Amazon Redshift for the analyzing and visualization of large data. These results will help the organization to know more about user preferences, refinement of various features and overall performance of the modern application.

Gathering Customer Feedback

 The most important of all, customer feedback. First of all, it helps in gathering valuable insights regarding the user preferences and the pain points which need further improvement. Modern applications fulfil their purpose when they meet user expectations and needs. It is very important for the organization to gather feedback because there is always room for improvement.

Even this task can be automated using Amazon Comprehend. It conducts sentiment analysis which helps organizations to extract meaningful insights from the provided feedback. When qualitative and quantitative feedback are combined, a more informed decision can be made.

Real-World Examples

Netflix: Optimizing Content Recommendations

Netflix uses analytics to measure user’s content consumption patterns, engagement along with retention. For this, AWS tools such as Amazon CloudWatch is used for real-time monitoring, AWS Lambda for serverless computing and Amazon Redshift for Data warehousing.

Airbnb: Enhancing User Experience

As discussed before, A/B testing is used widely for comparing which feature version is more beneficial. Similarly, Airbnb uses A/B testing techniques to evaluate changes in the UI, booking flows and search algorithms. For this purpose use the following AWS tools.

• AWS Amplify – Frontend Development
• Amazon Pinpoint – User Engagement
• AWS CloudTrail – Auditing changes

Uber: Dynamic Pricing Optimization

 Just like Airbnb, Uber too uses A/B testing techniques for assessing the impact of changes in pricing algorithms on rider engagement. Following AWS tools can help in this situation.

• AWS Lambda – Serverless Computing
• Amazon DynamoDB – Scalable Data Storage
•  Amazon QuickSight – Analytics

Best Practices

Some of the best practices which are considered to be done at any cost includes aligning KPIs with business objectives. The insights should be detailed enough to provide information regarding business success, user satisfaction and revenue generation etc.

To keep the track record of the application’s performance it is important to implement real time monitoring. It will also identify bugs which could be resolved within time. This will contribute to a positive user experience.

Keep conducting A/B testing to know about the impact of changes on user behavior. This will help organizations know which feature brought more positive user experience and can be considered the best one.

Conclusion

All in all, in order to accelerate modern applications there is a dire need of various tools and services which can make your work easier. Such as measuring the business outcomes using AWS tools, implementing cloud-native technologies to lessen the burden of On-premise infrastructure, enable real-time monitoring to evaluate the performance of your application and last but not the least implementing DevOps principles within your modern application. All these things will keep you one step ahead in the game and SUDO Consultants being the cloud solution providers in Dubai are way ahead in these expertise.