In a time when most consumers interact with brands and businesses through smartphone apps, many companies fall behind by failing to keep up with mobile app deployment demands. Those organizations which master a simplified approach to developing and deploying interesting apps are capable of holding customer attention for much longer.
Key Takeaways:
- Smooth development leads to smooth deployment, so it is necessary to adopt modern development practices at every step.
- Taking a thorough approach to deployment means initiating the testing phase during development and extending monitoring practices long after launch.
- The best tools to facilitate healthy app deployment are those that work well with a business’s future-proof cloud environment.
By mastering a modern framework for deploying mobile apps, whether internally or to consumer-facing storefronts, businesses can see rejuvenated success.
Know the basics of mobile app deployment
Mobile app deployment is the process that takes place after successful development to make the application available to its intended users. This can entail deploying the app internally within a company for production use or deploying it on a consumer-facing store with a goal of mass adoption.
Deploying an app tends to be the easiest part of the whole development process. Compared to the effort of painstakingly researching, collaborating, and developing, the act of releasing an app to a digital storefront is relatively simple. Modern app deployment, however, does involve further steps even after a successful launch.
Strategizing for deployment begins during development and continues even after the app’s release. It includes solving challenges such as monetization and prolonging the app’s life cycle. These are pain points that a business can ease through proper monitoring and customer outreach, beginning as early as possible.
Research from FinancesOnline shows that the most popular types of apps in the United States include those in the communications, web browsers, and utility categories. Releasing a wide variety of apps in several popular categories enables businesses to interact with customers on more fronts and to hold their attention for longer, but this requires a modern approach to mobile app deployment that allows for the efficient development of a large volume of apps at a pace that matches market demand.
Embrace the latest in app development
Development precedes deployment and ultimately determines the fate of an application after it reaches the end user. Embracing modern practices throughout the development process makes it possible to accelerate the time to market, reduce costs across the board, and see heightened reliability both immediately after deployment and long after.
As more and more of the IT environment moves to the cloud, it becomes apparent that app development must also take a cloud-native approach so that every aspect of the process can be truly future-proof. Developing in the cloud on cloud-native architecture allows teams to take full advantage of the resources and agility that are inherent in an environment free from physical hardware limitations.
Implementing modern DevOps methodologies can further streamline development projects from conception to mobile app deployment. Full adoption of DevOps means facilitating collaboration between developers and operators as well as making use of automation to ease the burden on those teams every step of the way.
It is also important to begin planning for the management of an application’s lifecycle from the early idea stages. Prioritizing the longevity of an app helps to ensure successful development and deployment processes that follow a carefully-laid strategy.
Check out this customer success story to see how Trek used the Nutanix Cloud Platform to reduce management and storage costs, as well as free up developers to work on new innovative projects.
Follow a modern framework for deployment
Though deployment does not occur until after the full completion of an app’s development, there are certain aspects of the modern mobile app deployment framework that do overlap with the developmental stages. Namely, the process of testing for bugs and vulnerabilities is the step that kicks off the deployment stage before development fully concludes.
As an additional measure before launching, developers must make a thorough check of the app’s back-end and the application programming interface to ensure that everything is in good shape and that the app itself is scalable to accommodate large spikes in user activity.
It is then necessary to continue monitoring the app after deployment. There may even still be development work to do in terms of deploying new iterations of the app or rolling out updates that improve security or user experience. Watching app usage analytics can also help with refining certain features or with inspiring future development ideas.
The final step in mobile app deployment is to continue customer service practices until the end of the app’s life cycle. Addressing consumer concerns is the key to prolonging the lifespan of an app, so it should therefore be a priority not only for customer-facing service staff but also for IT leaders directly involved in development and deployment.
Use cutting-edge solutions for mobile app deployment
Businesses seeking to improve development and deployment need the right tools and solutions for streamlining the process. The best option is to work on a platform that facilitates optimization, automation, and security governance.
Forward-thinking companies looking to migrate to the hybrid multicloud also need a solution that capitalizes on cloud-based mobile app deployment opportunities. This applies equally to those businesses already operating in the cloud who wish to expand to a more diverse multicloud setting.
The Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is a unified solution for many orchestration and development challenges. This cloud manager platform empowers enterprise operators to more efficiently manage applications at any stage of development and to quickly put the finished product in the hands of consumers or internal teams through a simplified cloud-based process.
Developing new applications in the current day comes with unprecedented complexity, especially for businesses that choose to deploy multiple apps within short time frames. The modern approach to mobile app deployment hides that complexity beneath a development interface that prioritizes simplicity so that teams can focus on great outcomes for the consumer.
Learn more about cloud native application development and how the NCM enables self-service for efficiency-minded dev teams.
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