Using applications from the cloud is easy. Putting applications on the cloud, not so much. Many business applications require custom setups, and they communicate with other programs that demand their own special resources.

Developing ways to more easily move applications to the cloud is a growing business opportunity in the enterprise. However, the best solution is to build them ready for the cloud from the start, according to Ben Fathi (pictured), technical advisor at appLariat Corp. Either approach benefits from a development environment made for the task.

To gain some insight into the world of cloud-native development and deployment, Fathi and Mazda Marvasti, chief executive officer of appLariat, spoke to Jeff Frick, co-host of theCUBE, during an interview at theCUBE’s Palo Alto studio. (*Disclosure below.)

Fathi and Marvasti discussed opportunities, challenges and cloud application management.

A shift in environments

The rise of containers and cloud-native applications left IT organizations struggling with the move to the cloud, according to Fathi. As a result, appLariat began to offer its customers an environment that made containers easy, aiding with cloud migrations.

“The big challenge is how do you deploy these things at scale to existing applications,” Marvasti said. How can appLariat take development and bring it into the modern environment, making it cloud-native? That was the challenge the company faced.

There’s also the matter of legacy applications. There’s going to be a long tail of legacy applications that run well into the future, Fathi mentioned. At the same time, others are being broken down into micro-services or built cloud-native. This vastly different collection of programs must be managed, and management is a key part that must be automated, but the industry isn’t there yet, he said.

“It’s early days. I think you’re going to see a lot of improvements,” Fathi stated.

Marvasti furthered the point about management. Going to the cloud is something everyone is thinking about, but they’re missing operations from day two and going forward, he explained. A policy-based program for managing those environments is critical from day two on.

So why do containers and the cloud offere such opportunity? Enterprise uses their custom applications to do business, Marvasti explained. The problem is, they can’t keep up with smaller competitors, so they need to bring these capabilities into their environment.

“It’s a business problem,” he said.

Watch the full video interview below. (*Disclosure: This segment’s sponsor, appLariat, does not have editorial oversight of content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE