Application

We could simply break down the Application layer into industry-specific and cross-industry applications and be done with it. However, we need to ensure that applications support Big Data, Business Continuity and Mobility. This includes common APIs and protocols for easy integration. For this, consider the data and its relevance to the business.

One of the key challenges in the Application layer is that you may end up with application sprawl, and, depending on the size of the organisation and how long it has been operating, there is a likely chance you will have multiple applications performing similar if not duplicate tasks. This happens in large global organisations and presents big challenges to CIOs and CTOs who are trying to both consolidate applications and create a unified organisation.

Taking stock of your entire application landscape is key. It is typically not easy to retire applications, as you normally find that one or two business units depend on them and their productivity would stop. Just introducing new applications and asking people to start using them perpetuates the application sprawl; you end up with new and old apps, and data integration becomes people copying and pasting data from one application to the other. This is hardly productive, causes problems with data accuracy and consistency, and is a burden on the employees.

As you review your application landscape, the key concept to understand for Next Generation solutions is Application Modernisation, the practice of taking you legacy application estate and transitioning it to a new application and new platform, or upgrading to the latest versions to provide the features and functionality that business are expecting. The move could be small or large depending on your starting point and the end state you want to achieve. Many enterprises are looking to cloudify their apps, giving them a new platform and commercial framework.

However, we can now start to consider some of the various delivery mechanisms that can help us be more agile and improve our time to market. Let’s start with Cloud Apps, a key enabler in the Next Generation solution set. Although we typically think of Amazon and Google, there are many vendors and products in the enterprise cloud application space. Look at the success of cloud applications like Salesforce; five years ago we would have run for the hills at the thought of hosting our sales and other proprietary data on a public cloud.

A key focus now for CIOs and CTOs is how to migrate their legacy apps to the new cloud-enabled solutions. This can be an expensive but valuable exercise, as we see the maturity and coverage of cloud applications becoming the norm for a majority of businesses. This will provide a good stepping stone for future-proofing your estate and taking advantage of the new development and delivery processes like DevOps, which enable rapid development and roll-out of applications and code updates in a seamless and risk-free approach, making change the norm verses the exception. Anyone who uses Google or Amazon apps today knows that updates to their applications are rolled out without incident, new features or bug fixes are deployed continuously during the day, and no Change Control ticket or Service Outage notice is created. CIOs and CTOs want their business applications to inherit these principles that are rooted in the consumer space.

Link to Part 4 Platform

Next Generation IT: Application Part 3 of 6

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