The change to the agile operation of cloud-native applications  

Welcome to the club!

The cloud is the entrance ticket for the club of agile companies, as the cloud-native applications can be flexibly combined, transformed, extended and customized. However, not every company has in-house appropriate competencies. Thus, T-Systems supports the companies to develop and to operate cloud-native applications in the DevOps-model.

 

The classical IT-operation manuals, the runbooks, are not in use since long. Why this is so? Firstly, because the applications are becoming even more complex. And secondly because now-a-days the applications are never ready to use. There are constant changes; new functions are added on a regular basis and in rapid succession. Thus, the IT-executives in the companies cannot rely on the standard processes to resolve the problems in case of malfunction. In fact, a deep know-how is required, as the complexity and rapid changing nature of applications makes a detailed examination of incidents necessary in each individual case.

The traditional operating units are rapidly overburdened with such tasks. Moreover, the developers are interested in concentrating on their core task. In addition, the experience and the know-how with cloud-native applications, agile process models and the interaction of development and operation are often simply missing within the scope of DevOps. Peter Reinecke, Head of Managed PaaS Services in T-Systems says “Ideally the agile operation and ITIL-processes are combined with each other. This accelerates the development as well as operation”

Here T-Systems can provide help: The provider supports the companies for the development as well as for the operation of cloud-native applications, ensures a 24/7-service model and has the required experience with cloud-specific and agile procedure. Reinecke says: “We rely on the mixed operation teams of T-Systems to combine the different knowledge. For this purpose, we have created the role of DevOps-Engineers, who acts as a mediator between the development and operation for the companies”.

T-Systems has an extensive experience in the cloud-business, especially with Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and in the IT-operation. Thus, the provider is capable of providing the complete range of services for cloud, PaaS, middleware and operation from one provider. This offer is flanked by the security-services of Telekom and independent of the cloud that the companies specifically use. In addition, T-Systems can display both the worlds through its international orientation: Dev-Ops-support and consulting on-site combined with operational services from distributed T-Systems locations.

Interested companies can get in contact with Peter Reinecke, Head of Managed PaaS Services in T-Systems under:

P.Reinecke@t-systems.com

 

The advantages of cloud native

Cloud-native technologies are used to develop applications, which are packed in containers and are provided as micro service. This has an advantage that based on the requirement, these can be scaled automatically, if the load increases clearly in case of high hit rates. The failure of individual services does not necessarily lead to the failure of the overall system. And last, but not least: New and changed services can go live during the operation and require no downtime.

Cloud-native applications are designed to usually provide already proven and recognized business values. An example for this is: the quick integration of user-feedback as basis for continuous improvement processes. The new and existing functions can be much faster developed, optimized and connected to each other with these applications. The result of this is the customized applications, which can keep pace with the high speed of business change.