Cloud : Modern Applications & Fujitsu

By Daniel Sahler for Fujitsu Luxembourg

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations are constantly seeking ways to enhance their operational efficiency, agility, and competitiveness. Application modernization stands out as a critical strategy to achieve these goals. Modern applications are characterized by their scalability, resilience, and ability to integrate seamlessly with various services and platforms. They are designed to support agile development practices, offer enhanced user experiences, and reduce the time-to-market for new features and updates.

Embracing Containers and Microservices

A central aspect of application modernization is the adoption of containerization and microservices architecture. Containers provide a lightweight and efficient means of packaging, distributing, and running applications, ensuring consistency across different environments. Microservices architecture, on the other hand, involves breaking down applications into smaller, independently deployable services that communicate through well-defined APIs. This modular approach facilitates easier maintenance, faster updates, and better scalability.

Containers: a deeper Dive

Containerization technology, Docker for instance is one of the leaders, enables developers to create isolated environments that contain everything an application needs to run. This isolation ensures that applications perform consistently across different environments, reducing the "it works on my machine" problem. Kubernetes, an open-source container orchestration platform, takes this a step further by automating the deployment, scaling, and operation of application containers, providing an additional layer of efficiency and reliability.

Microservices and their role

Microservices architecture transforms the way applications are developed and deployed. Instead of a monolithic approach, where every function of the application is intertwined in a single codebase, microservices allow for modular development. Each service performs a specific function and communicates with other services via APIs. This modularity enables teams to work on different services independently, reducing development time and enhancing innovation.

DevOps Principles and Automation

To fully harness the benefits of containers and microservices, organizations must embrace DevOps principles and practices. DevOps emphasizes the continuous collaboration between development, operations, and other stakeholders throughout the application lifecycle. Automation plays a crucial role in this, as it helps streamline various stages of the development pipeline, from code integration and testing to deployment and monitoring. This not only accelerates the release cycles but also enhances the reliability and stability of the applications.

Automation: the heart of DevOps

Automation is at the core of DevOps, streamlining every stage of the application lifecycle from code integration, testing, and building to deployment and monitoring. The right tooling plays a crucial role in implementing automation, providing a streamlined and reliable process for delivering applications.

Hybrid: the new normal

While cloud environments offer a range of advantages for hosting modern applications, they are not the only option. Organizations can host their containerized applications on local platforms, before actually being ready to adopt cloud entirely. Fujitsu’s unique end-to-end capabilities empower clients to establish robust on-premises container platforms, leveraging leading technologies such as Red Hat OpenShift at the core.

Red Hat OpenShift provides a comprehensive container orchestration platform, enabling organizations to develop, deploy, and manage their containerized applications seamlessly. Its integration with major cloud providers like Azure and AWS further facilitates a hybrid setup, allowing businesses to extend their infrastructure to the cloud when needed. This approach ensures optimal flexibility, scalability, and resilience, catering to the varying needs of modern applications.

Fujitsu: Your Partner in Application Modernization

Fujitsu stands at the forefront of application modernization, bringing years of experience, deep technical expertise, and a proven track record in helping organizations transform their application landscapes. Our team of experts collaborates closely with clients, guiding them through the complexities of containerization, microservices, and DevOps and Cloud adoption, ensuring they can leverage the full potential of modern application development and deployment practices.

From strategy and planning to implementation and ongoing support, Fujitsu provides a holistic suite of services tailored to each client’s unique requirements. We understand the nuances of various industries, enabling us to deliver solutions that align with our clients’ business objectives while ensuring compliance with relevant standards and regulations.

Conclusion

In an era where agility, efficiency, and innovation are more important than ever, application modernization stands as a critical enabler. By embracing containerization, microservices, and DevOps practices, organizations can transform their application landscapes, achieving unparalleled levels of performance, scalability, and resilience, without being fully onboarded on one or more public clouds. Fujitsu, with its extensive experience and end-to-end capabilities, is the ideal partner to guide and support businesses on this transformative journey, ensuring they are well-positioned to thrive in today’s digital world.

By Daniel Sahler for Fujitsu Luxembourg