The path into the cloud

Traditional manufacturing companies find themselves in a globalised and competitive market environment where they have to react quickly to individual customer requests. Only by streamlining processes and adopting a consistent digitalisation strategy unused productivity can be unleashed. In many companies, the provision of IT infrastructure is usually still based on conventional technologies and processes. This often requires a high capital outlay, which is bound in hardware on site for a long time and must be planned for in advance with a considerable uncertainty factor. Ingrained processes that are difficult to change make it difficult to roll out new software solutions and expand functionality. If companies want to increase the productivity of their software development, future solutions must leave these processes behind and rethink them. This is only possible with an increased use of cloud technologies.

An application developed for the cloud can grow with the requirements of the product. Instead of operating own data centres spread across all locations, the cloud offers a central place to roll out servers and software worldwide in real time. The standardised processes of the cloud providers ensure a consistent, always up-to-date and automatable IT infrastructure. The high degree of automation drastically reduces operating and personnel costs. With this flexibility, development teams are in a position to concentrate on the functionality of software and operate it efficiently. Cloud-native applications usually follows architectures, in which the overall functionality is mapped to modular, indepentent and reusable software components. This also makes it easy to integrate and expand existing systems with new functionality. Short release cycles enable the company to keep pace with a volatile market and to further expand its competitive advantage by quickly integrating customer feedback.