The 5 Tools You Need to Simplify Data Distribution

When’s the last time you sat there patiently when a website or app took forever to load—either for personal or professional purposes?

In the age of Amazon and smartphones, we all know how websites should work. When they don’t meet our expectations, we get frustrated. 

For customer-facing sites, inefficient applications lead to disgruntled customers. For employee-facing enterprise apps, slow loading times lead to productivity decreases and unhappy staffers. 

When we talk about expectations, we mean this: Nearly half of users expect sites to load in two seconds or less. Two seconds! 

In the age of distributed teams, everywhere access, and big data, meeting and exceeding these expectations can seem tricky. But with the right architecture and infrastructure in place, it’s something that’s within your reach. 

Here are five tools you need to simplify data distribution, increasing application performance and strengthening the user experience along the way.

1. Hybrid cloud

Simply put, modern applications are best suited for the hybrid cloud. In these environments, you get more control over your on-prem tech infrastructure while also being able to leverage public cloud resources to take care of your AI/ML needs. Every application is different. With the hybrid cloud, you can build the exact infrastructure you need to deliver exemplary experiences.

2. Microservices

According to IDC, 90% of applications will utilize microservices architecture by 2020. This is due to the fact that microservices enable organizations to rapidly build and scale applications, working on individual features as standalone units instead of engineering a massive monolith. Microservices, however, can present data distribution challenges—particularly when data is shared among several different microservices. With the right underlying technologies in place, however, microservices can help simplify data distribution and accelerate performance.

3. Containers

Containers make microservices architecture easy by enabling developers to create, deploy, and run applications in any kind of environment. The technology also makes applications compute-efficient, improving performance and data distribution while decreasing data center costs.

4. Container orchestration

Microservices-architected applications are generally built with several different containers. A container orchestration platform like Kubernetes makes it much easier to manage lots of containers. Still, when it comes to simplifying data management, Kubernetes is not a panacea—particularly when applications are built on top of traditional databases. Luckily, there’s an easy fix for this problem, which segues nicely into number five. 

5. Active Everywhere database

Simplifying data distribution in hybrid cloud environments in applications built with microservices architecture requires an underlying database that can keep pace with performance expectations. Since modern applications use tons of data, traditional active-active or active-passive databases no longer cut it. This is exactly why we built DataStax Enterprise, an Active Everywhere database built on Apache Cassandra’s masterless architecture. With an Active Everywhere database powering your applications, data can flow smoothly in every direction.

Simplify Data Distribution to Accelerate Your Applications

In the age of instant gratification and real-time experiences, velocity matters. Every company has a ton of data under its control, and volumes more are created every day. 

To move faster, increase team productivity, and strengthen user experiences, you need to build applications with microservices architecture that are designed for high-performance in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The easiest way to do that is by using containers, a container orchestration platform, and an Active Everywhere database like DataStax Enterprise.

Add it all up, and that’s the recipe for stronger applications that drive competitive advantage gains while impressing customers and engaging your team along the way.