A Cloudy Day for the Developers

These days, having your head in the clouds in NOT a bad thing; especially when most of the organizations are looking forward towards Cloud.

One of the greatest inventions of our time is Cloud. Though there are enough pointers to prove that cloud computing is not a new concept, the idea of resources sharing was there for a long time but it was never projected in this scale ever before. Cloud is the future. As companies are keen to move towards cloud, developers too need to get themselves #CloudReady. It’s always advisable to onboard a technology when it’s still niche to get most of its advantages.

Cloud will change how we do our day-to-day activities. As infrastructure and software landscapes are rapidly changing in the Cloud World, the age old practices surrounding them also need to change to keep themselves reverent. As long lines of code get replaced by more reusable configuration like coding mostly done within a web browser; the large teams will sink to just few cloud specialists and the role of a manager will be more like a facilitator than what use to be earlier of a supervisor. Most of the code will be auto generated. The emphasis will be more in the design then how to write the code. Developers need to step up and think more from an architectural design point of view then just the coding. As the teams sinks, the demand for multi-specialist developers will increase. Even the support team will sink, as most of the monotonous monitoring and maintenance tasks of the application support teams will be done by the bots; Bots will be used everywhere doing all kinds of low skill tasks. Organizations will have more bots in their payroll then than fulltime employees.

Whether we are ready or not these changes are coming, adapting to the changes can only ensure developers future. Those who don’t transform will be left behind or may even parish. For a sustainable future a developer need to more frequently upgrade their skill than ever before. As the workforces reduces with more and more adaptation of automation within the processes, one need to constantly look out for newer and never before explore areas.

How cloud is going to impact developer’s life?

For a typical developer who may not care much whether their code is deployed to a server or to a cloud infrastructure; even for them cloud will have a significant impact. Earlier developers would work on their own computer in an environment that was fully under their control. They never had the option of testing their code in a production like situation. Indeed, that is why some tension persists between development teams and the system administrators – How many times have we heard the infamous line “When I run it on my machine, it works fine”?

With the advent of the cloud, developers now have access to the infrastructure that mimics a production like environment. Infrastructure will not be a problem anymore, developer can request any infrastructure they required on-demand basis without incurring a major dent on the project budget. Those niche areas where developers were unable to enter due to infrastructure constrains will now be open for them to explore. As the cloud enhance the collaboration among the team across geographical dispersed, developers now will be able to effectively collaborate with other developers to make their life easy. For developers working on Open Source will see more traction as enterprise shifts their legacy solution towards the cloud. In cloud software’s are provided as a service, licensing obligation that are linked to open source product get simpler this make enterprise to adapt more and more open source products which would increase the demand for open source developers.

Along with open source adaptation, as organizations are moving into Cloud we will see more and more adaptation of RAD and new application framework like microservices which will further simplify the development process. It will also lead to reduce team size. Developers working on such small discrete teams need to be ready to work in application that are on longer constructed all-in-one, but made up of a multitude of software modules with more than one technology. Developers should be open to adapt a new technology quickly and be productive almost immediately.

For developers working on package application, cloud will completely revolutionized their life. As more and more vendors are moving towards cloud base offerings, future package application development will be on Cloud only. They need to make themselves acquainted to all kinds of cloud base adaptors and there will be a steep raise in the cloud base integration.

In Cloud World devOps will be another important area where a good number of developers will be working in the future.

How to become #cloudReady ?

There is enough guidance available on internet for organization to become #CloudReady, but comparatively there is not enough guidance available for the developers who want to make themselves #CloudReady. One of the main reason for this is – cloud is still evolving, many of the top cloud providers products are still maturing. As the products are maturing the best way to get onboard is by getting your hand dirty. Most of the vendors offer trials; by spending a relatively small amount of money one can get their hands on the cloud. Try out your own things, share your experiences over a blog, collaborate with other developers and learn from their experiences and most importantly read the product manual that are available. Getting certification may be one another way to get industry wide recognition for your new skills. There are enough cloud certifications to choose from. One needs to choose which is relevant for them.

Even when one is not working on cloud yet, they need to make sure they understand how cloud works. Understanding how things are done on the ground and on the Cloud World. Try to acquire end-to-end knowledge of what they are doing. Don’t keep yourself within the boundaries of the technology that you are currently working on, explore other areas, Try automating the manual tasks, become an innovator.

Conclusion

“The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change“, in this ever changing world skill that one need is adaptation. Quicker you adapt to a change better it’s. One should always keep the curiosity within themselves to learn new things. Till the time you are evolving you can’t grow obsolete. Before cloud covers over the industry make yourself #CloudReady.

About the Author

Kaustav has over a decade experience is product development, IT services and captive offshoring operation centers with strong focus on application designing , implementing and deploying scalable enterprise applications. Kaustav is a certified SOA-BPM expert with keen interest in Application security and Identify and Access management. Kaustav is also a cloud enthusiast and has been associated with Oracle cloud platform from its early days.