As of writing this book, there is a lot of interest in cloud platforms. We currently see big companies moving their IT infrastructure into cloud offerings. But what benefits does the cloud have to offer?.

First of all, we have to be aware that modern environments do not necessarily have to run on top of a cloud platform. All the benefits of container technology and container orchestration frameworks can equally be achieved using company-internal infrastructure. On premise installations of platforms such as Kubernetes or OpenShift at first provide the same advantages for software teams. In fact, one of the biggest benefits of container runtimes is to abstract the environment where the containers are running. Why are cloud platforms interesting for companies then?

As mentioned in the beginning of this book, the software world is moving faster than ever. The key for companies to keep pace with the trends in their business is to embrace agility and velocity in terms of moving fast. The time to market of new products and features thereof need to be as short as possible. Moving in iterative steps, adapting to customers' needs and continuously improving software meets this demand. In order to realize this goal, IT infrastructure, as well as all other aspects of software engineering, needs to be fast and flexible. New environments should be setup via automated, reliable and reproducible processes. The same principles for continuous software delivery apply to server environments. Cloud platforms offer this possibility.

Companies that want to embrace agility and to adapt to their customers' demands need to ask themselves the question: How long does it take to provision new environments? This is the prerequisite of being able to adapt quickly. Provisioning whole new environments should be a matter of minutes, should not require overly complex processes and ideally no human intervention. As said before it is definitely possible to realize such approaches on premises. Cloud offerings, however, offer these benefits out of the box with sufficient, scalable resources. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings take a lot of work off the hands of companies, enabling them to focus on building their products.

Still, big companies are often skeptical when it comes to cloud services, especially in terms of data security. Interestingly, experience of projects shows that when comparing infrastructure environments down to earth, cloud platforms run by sophisticated enterprises offer more secure environments than most on premises. Cloud platform providers put a lot of time and effort into building proper solutions. Especially combining cloud platform offerings with orchestration solutions, such as Docker Compose, Kubernetes, or OpenShift hold a lot of potential.

Interestingly, one of the main arguments of companies to move their IT into the cloud is because of economic reasons. From experience, a lot of companies want to save costs by using cloud platforms. In fact, when taking the whole process of migrating and transforming environments, teams, technology, and most of all know-how, into account, on premises solutions are usually still cheaper. However, the main advantage of cloud offerings is flexibility and the ability to move fast. If an IT company maintains a well-orchestrated landscape, including automation, reliable and reproducible processes, it is advisable to keep, and continuously improve, this approach. That said, the question about modern environments is less about whether to use cloud platforms than about processes, team mindsets, and reasonable technology.