Yenlo supports organizations with every cloud strategy
Sometimes, companies with a significant history claim that they have transitioned from Cloud First to Cloud Native in recent times. This seems like a peculiar assertion. How can you claim to have made the shift to Cloud Native when the company may have been established long before the rise of cloud services?
In this text, I’ll outline the concepts of Cloud First, Cloud Native, and Cloud Only. Additionally, I’ll explain how Yenlo can support organizations with any cloud strategy they choose.
Cloud First as a Strategy
Let’s start with Cloud First. Essentially, it’s a strategic decision for a company. The company commits to consistently exploring if they can find a cloud service that meets their requirements directly. For example, they might search within the service library of Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a solution that precisely fits the requirements of the use case at hand. The intention is to try out that solution as the first choice. If AWS doesn’t provide a solution, other Cloud Service Providers can also be considered. Generally, a cloud service is preferred. Therefore, Cloud First is a strategic choice.
Cloud Native in Development
With Cloud Native, the choice is made at the development and integration level. If a company opts for this approach, developers actually work with the aim of building the entire application using building blocks available in the cloud. Each element runs from the beginning (hence ‘native’) in the cloud. For instance, with AWS, you can utilize serverless computing, where the AWS Lambda services enable writing code directly in the cloud.
This is a good time to re-evaluate whether your API platform is prepared for the new world.
Download nowAPIs as Communication Channels
As a developer, you use these blocks of code to build an application. Every application has a certain throughput: something goes in, and it should result in an outcome. This requires communication with other applications. APIs play an essential role in this, and as is well known, Yenlo is recognized as an absolute specialist in the development, securing, and managing of APIs. Hence, we are intensively involved with companies opting for Cloud Native.
Relation to On-Premise
Let me revert to the earlier description of Cloud First. As mentioned, it’s a strategic choice: for new developments, the company opts for a cloud solution provided by a provider, such as AWS. In the company, there may still be on-premise applications. That shouldn’t be a problem. Naturally, APIs from a cloud solution can communicate well with other cloud solutions, but there’s no reason why they couldn’t also communicate with on-premise software.
Legacy Environments
Yenlo has several major clients in sectors like banking or insurance, who still work (or must work) with legacy environments and have substantial on-premise stacks. This offers interesting opportunities for us and the client. We often offer these clients an API management solution in the cloud that unlocks the underlying on-premise environment of the client. In doing so, the client essentially opts for a Cloud First approach to enable the online exposure of existing services.
We frequently handle such projects at Yenlo, often using the Connext Platform. With this, we can go live within a week at such a client with the online exposure of their services.
Yenlo as a Strategic Partner
Of course, a company can also choose to build a connection from its own data center and approach the desired online applications via its own API management layer. But that needs to be maintained. You need to have the right people and knowledge in-house, and you need to consider the necessary FTEs for its management. For many companies, that’s not feasible, so they seek a strategic partner like us.
Standard Integration Solutions
Then there’s the difference between Cloud Native and Cloud Only. With Cloud Native, there’s little or no legacy in the organization. It’s a ‘greenfield’ in that sense. As mentioned, you build an application and do it entirely in the cloud right from the start. You don’t even consider running it on-premise. You immediately use the most suitable technology.
You can do this with our Connext Go Platform, where we offer an extensive library of standard integration solutions, including for linking software systems, enabling customers to get started right away. This Yenlo Connext Go platform is entirely Cloud Native itself. The foundation of this environment is the Kubernetes containerization platform.
Cloud Only
Furthermore, we go a step further with what we call Cloud Only. Here, we utilize fully serverless technologies to offer integrations to our customers. These offer extreme scalability and enable a level of dynamism that’s not easily achievable with other development methods. You place code in AWS, and that provider keeps it running. It doesn’t matter how many users come simultaneously; the provider automatically scales enough capacity to handle it and scales down immediately when it’s no longer needed. You don’t manage the servers; you manage your code in the cloud.
This sketch illustrates how dynamic the cloud is. There’s something new to discover and develop every day. It offers incredible potential to help customers. That’s what makes working in the cloud so beautiful for me.
