In our pillar article, we discussed the importance of designing software systems capable of adapting to the rapidly changing technological landscape. Future-proofing your software architecture is a critical aspect of staying competitive, and ensuring your business can keep up with evolving needs and advancements in technology.
As digital transformation continues to reshape the world of technology and businesses, the design of scalable and highly available software systems is no longer an option but a necessity for businesses looking to stay competitive. According to Gartner, 70% of organizations expect to increase their investment in scalable architecture, over the next two years, and 75% of firms that take advantage of dispersed enterprise benefits will see revenue growth that is 25% quicker than rivals.
Key principles for scalable and highly available architectures
Scalability is the power of an app to grow so that it can handle more work. In the early stages of an app, it might be able to easily do this, but as the number of users grows, the web service can become slower. This could be because the CPU, RAM, and other computer tools on the server have reached their limits. Here are some ways to grow web applications when they hit these limits.
Decoupling
The foundation of scalability lies in decoupling, which means dividing an application into smaller, independent components. By doing so, each component can be scaled, updated, and managed independently, enabling faster response to changing demands.
Load balancing
Load balancing helps distribute workloads across multiple servers to optimize resource utilization and ensure that no single server is overwhelmed. Load balancing is essential for preventing downtime, streamlining security, and lowering the risk of lost productivity and lost revenue for your company.
Fault tolerance
Fault tolerance is crucial for ensuring high availability. It involves designing systems that can handle component failures gracefully, minimizing downtime and ensuring a seamless user experience.
Caching
Caching involves storing frequently used data in memory, reducing the need for time-consuming database queries. Forrester states that effective caching can increase application performance by up to 50%.
Stateless Applications
Stateless applications don't store any client-specific data on the server, making it easier to distribute requests across multiple instances.
The Kubeark platform: a boon for DevOps and infrastructure
Kubeark, an innovative platform for managing large-scale distributed applications, offers numerous benefits for DevOps and infrastructure, including:
- Efficiently manage large-scale, distributed applications: the Kubeark platforms leverages Kubernetes to simplify the management of complex, large-scale applications, ensuring optimal performance and reliability.
- Improve application scalability, performance, and availability: we enable developers to quickly scale applications according to changing requirements, thereby improving the overall application performance and availability. Gartner estimates that “90% of global organizations will be running containerized applications in production by 2026—up from 40% in 2021. In addition, by 2026 20% of all enterprise applications will run in containers—up from fewer than 10% in 2020”.
- Automate infrastructure tasks to reduce manual intervention: Kubeark offers robust automation capabilities, allowing teams to automate infrastructure tasks like deployment, scaling, and updates, freeing them from time-consuming manual work. According to Forrester, automating infrastructure tasks can reduce human error by 40% and increase operational efficiency by up to 30%.
Building scalable and highly available software architectures is critical for modern organizations. With key principles such as decoupling, load balancing, fault tolerance, caching, and stateless applications, businesses can achieve impressive performance gains and meet growing customer demands. Additionally, platforms like ours can significantly streamline business processes, further enhancing scalability and availability while reducing manual intervention. Get in touch with us, today, and request your private demo here.