Sponsored by Oracle

Organizations live and die by their applications. For ISVs, therefore, the pressure is on—more than ever before—to deliver and update enterprise-class applications on demand and on a continual basis.

How can ISVs double (if not triple) down on application development? A continuous development and integration model requires the kind of agility, reliability and high performance that the cloud provides. But not just any cloud will do for enterprise-class applications. Here are five things to look for.

1. Flexibility

No two customers have exactly the same needs. Look for a cloud platform that can be set up exactly as your customers and (and their regulatory requirements) demand—and then “reconfigured” when your and/or your customers’ needs change. This requires a cloud platform/provider that will accommodate not only technologies born in the cloud, such as Docker and Kubernetes, but also existing applications that were architected for on-premise deployment. Along those same lines, a cloud platform should enable your organization to keep some parts of a service on-premise while other parts leverage the public cloud. Further, a platform built on open standards will enable customers to operate their choice of software programs in the cloud.

2. Extensibility

In today’s dynamic business environment, standing still comes at too high a cost. ISVs need to move as fast as, if not faster than, their customers, which means not reinventing the wheel. Cloud platforms that include a broad and deep portfolio of enterprise-grade capabilities–such as business intelligence, analytics, mobile and social–will enable ISVs to easily build, update and extend applications.

3. Security

Developing at the speed of digital is critical, but speed can’t come at the cost of security. Enterprise customers demand the highest levels of security and compliance certification, which means leveraging a cloud platform that can offer comprehensive security offerings for all manner of cloud deployments; built-in controls at every layer, including infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS); consistent security features across hybrid deployments; and governance, visibility and transparency into cloud services.

4. Applicability

Look for a cloud offering that accommodates a wide range of development scenarios. Whether you are developing and deploying enterprise applications or mobile apps, a cloud platform should include all the tools and utilities you need to get the job done quickly, efficiently and completely. This is especially important as organizations consider their mix of cloud-native and legacy, on-premise applications. A cloud platform that doesn’t provide tools and support for all of an organization’s applications will create hurdles along the development path.

5. Mobility

With today’s mobile-first mantra, ISVs need a cloud platform that will enable them to rapidly build apps for mobile devices and to integrate with a common set of APIs that can be shared across delivery channels. Mobile application development should tie into software development infrastructure to take advantage of continuous integration and delivery capabilities, and it must provide a means to download and update mobile apps through an app store or a similar means of distribution.

To meet customer demand and stay ahead of the pack, ISVs need to identify the right cloud platform and the right cloud provider. Oracle Cloud enables ISVs to cost-effectively build, deploy, and manage workloads seamlessly on-premises or in the cloud—with superior choice, openness, security and built-in intelligence. For more information, click here.

David Hicks, Vice President, Worldwide ISV, OEM, and Java Business Development, Oracle

This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.