Cloud Technologies

The modern approach in software development

It is hard to imagine modern applications today without the use of cloud technologies. Thanks to the possibilities offered by the cloud, applications can be easily scaled on a global level and constant availability can be ensured. The maintenance, configuration and updating of operating systems and hardware is also eliminated when using platform-as-a-service services and development according to a cloud-first approach.

With Azure Cloud, Microsoft offers an environment that enables easier development with its numerous PaaS products. These range from various database technologies to multiple computing services and AI services, such as the Azure OpenAI service.

As a certified Azure Developer Associate, I have been developing on the Azure Cloud environment for several years using a wide variety of products, such as:

• Service Bus
• Cosmos DB
• API Management
• App Configuration and Key Vault
• App Service
• Blob Storage
• Azure SQL and Azure Database for MySQL
• Azure Cache for Redis
• Azure Data Factory

I have already achieved several successes with the use of cloud services in past projects.

Azure Cosmos DB

Using Cosmos DB’s NoSQL API, the data is stored in a document format in a schema-less way. For LEW’s new customer portal, we decided to use this technology to store the metadata for the various letters and documents.

From my point of view, the big advantage of this is that only the data that is actually needed is stored in the appropriate format. For example, an invoice has an invoice number that another customer service letter does not need.

For me, the deployment was also an introduction to working with NoSQL databases.

API Management

The release of interfaces via this Azure product offers the possibility to easily control access and provide well-structured documentation. In addition, the use of APIs can be billed if desired.

In the past, I used API Management primarily to release interfaces to partner companies, which meant they could immediately integrate and use the services without any problems.

App Configuration

This Azure service enables applications to be configured centrally and provides the “Feature Flags” function. It is particularly beneficial when the microservice environment is hosted in the cloud and there are multiple environments, such as for development, quality assurance and production.

With the introduction of Azure App Configuration, I enabled LEW’s web applications to be deployed more easily. The feature flags make it possible to deploy functions that have not yet been released and to activate them after acceptance by the product owner without a new release.