Living in a day and age of instant gratification, speed is a significant driver of any successful insurance business. Based on this, to better navigate a fast-based environment – and the multitude of challenges insurance firms face - Cardinal Insurance management system recommends cloud-native applications.
Traditionally, apps have a large code footprint, are complex, and require significant time and resources to update. Close dependencies between the app and the underlying operating system, hardware, storage, and support services, typically characterize the architecture of these traditional applications, which also complicates and risks the application's migration and scaling across new infrastructures.
Cloud-native apps, on the other hand, are composed of independent, loosely coupled services. They are typically smaller than traditional apps and easier to develop, deploy, and iterate on. They are designed in such a way that they can take advantage of cloud computing models to improve speed, flexibility, and quality while lowering deployment risks.
Built for change, scale, and resilience, navigating the full benefits of cloud-native applications can be a long journey for modern insurance companies, but a worthwhile journey, nonetheless.
In this blog, we explore ten advantages made possible by using cloud-native applications
The problem with monolithic architecture is that previously, it limited companies to fixed resources that they had to pay for regardless of their involvement in the software development process. As maintenance and backup were additional services, the process became a lot longer and more expensive.
With cloud-native applications, all solutions are built to work in the cloud. This compatibility with cloud-native infrastructure lowers backup, maintenance, development, and resource utilization costs. Costs are significantly reduced when using an open-source system and tools such as serverless systems that use a pay-per-use model.
Traditional application features, such as longer-term software updates, dedicated teams for each task, and so on, are no longer required for enhanced customer experiences in today’s digital-first, fast-paced climate. What does this mean for organizations that have previously used monolithic architecture?
Moving to the cloud via application migration is a cost-effective way to avoid abandoning decades of work and investment and reallocating resources to a newer, scalable, and flexible platform, aiding in taking a mobile-first approach to application development, where most of the target audience currently resides. Cloud-native solutions, with tools that focus on a feedback and deployment cycle, change the entire development cycle and emphasize customer experience more than traditional applications.
Cloud-native applications change and adapt to meet the needs of the business, allowing for frequent software updates and changes based on customer feedback. Cloud-native apps allow for horizontal scalability as the organization grows, eliminating the need for hardware solutions and reliance on software-based infrastructure.
Vendor lock-in occurs when a person is essentially obliged to utilise a product or service regardless of quality, as moving away from that product or service is impractical.
Cloud-native avoids vendor lock-in by allowing users to make use of services from multiple cloud providers. Moving to a better cloud pricing and benefits plan is possible with cloud-native applications, as they are all designed to work on the cloud-native platform.
Adopting agile methodology and DevOps practices results in automation throughout the software development cycle. The deployment, testing, and feedback gathering is a continuous loop of improving productivity, and customer satisfaction with collaboration and CI/CD processes.
Cloud-native applications remove the constraints imposed by traditional architecture by allowing organizations to work on multiple cloud platforms, whether public, private or hybrid, without requiring any changes or additional requirements.
Cloud-native applications use serverless platforms to upload portions of code that perform specific functions when used in isolation. This allows the organization to reuse parts of a project’s code while developing a new or different project at the same time. The development team saves time and money by having each part of the cloud-native services function contain its logic rather than being orchestrated by one central application.
Due to the presence of microservices, cloud-native applications have an inherent fault-tolerant mechanism. In the event of post-deployment troubleshooting, tracing the source of the problem is much easier in cloud-native infrastructure due to the application being divided into microservices, each of which acts as a service function. After tracking is completed, the service is isolated, and the problem is resolved at its source, with no server downtime.
With the introduction of 5G and improved accessibility worldwide, most organizations are relying on faster technologies. As cloud-native applications are internet-based, they require a much faster internet to respond quickly. Insurance firms can benefit from the decades of development that better technologies will bring by implementing said applications.
Cloud-native applications are capable and designed to deal with modern data influx. The current generation is experiencing an influx of more transient, than permanent data. In traditional infrastructure, organizations had the option of storing data but not having access to it at the time.
However, cloud-native application development enables real-time data analysis and utilization to detect performance issues, troubleshooting, customer behavior, etc. The data can be given a lifespan and discarded or redirected to a storage medium. Another benefit of cloud-native infrastructure vendors is that most ensure compliance with GDPR and POPIA and other existing legal entities.
Given the cloud-native infrastructure's robustness and the communications within the decentralized structure, security is unquestionably an important issue. Data is constantly shared among various services and between the insurer and the user, resulting in several gateways that could serve as potential security breaches in cloud-native infrastructure.
Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that each unit is only exposed to relevant data and fields and audit data access. Beyond the security measures provided by the cloud-native infrastructure vendor, the insurance firm can ensure multiple layers of security, such as multi-factor authentication, restricted access, and sharing.
Cloud-native apps are becoming increasingly popular among enterprises for data collection, retrieval, and storage in a consumer-driven environment. It is the right tool for an organization to use to deliver, collaborate on, and increase work productivity in the face of global competition. By overcoming the limitations of traditional models, cloud-native solutions have assisted numerous enterprises in realizing their business visions.
As a result, by implementing the best cloud-native approach as Cardinal Insurance software company has done, enterprises can become more agile, scalable, and productive to be future-ready while meeting current needs.
Get in touch today for more information on Cardinal’s insurance-industry-specific products, services, and solutions.
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