Is Java still going strong in the age of Cloud Computing?

First released a little over a quarter-century ago, the Java programming language has an impressive track record of staying relevant. Despite constant speculation over the language dying out due to its time, Java has constantly evolved and sustained its popularity in the developer community, consistently featuring within the top three ranks in polls. As a result, an August ‘21 TIOBE Index shows Java ranking at second place with a 19.14% popularity share.

There are currently over 8 million Java developers worldwide. In addition, over 90% of Fortune 500 companies bank on Java for development projects, strongly indicating that it will be in demand for many years to come.

Java already plays a critical role in developing web-based applications, Android applications, gaming, software, IoT, embedded systems, and big data technologies. A mature technology by tech standards, Java continues to stay trending. YouTube, Spotify, Twitter, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, and LinkedIn use Java for back-end development.

Over the last decade, the enterprise IT landscape has transitioned from large and monolithic applications to lighter and more modular application architectures. Since Java EE (Enterprise Edition) was instrumental in the older methods of creating enterprise apps, it too needed to adapt to the times.

To enable this, the Java community came together in 2016 to develop MicroProfile (now part of the Eclipse Foundation), designed to help optimize Java EE for microservice architectures in this new age of cloud-native application development. As a result, MicroProfile is now fairly established, enabling Java to play a prominent role considering the needs of the developers.

Java has two decades of optimizations to run highly dynamic, monolithic applications that infer sole ownership of virtualized host CPU and memory. However, as of 2021, the world is dominated by the cloud, mobile, IoT, and open-source platforms, where containers, Kubernetes, microservices, reactive, Function-as-a-Service (FaaS), 12-factor, and cloud-native application developments are delivering unprecedented productivity and efficiency.

Therefore, there has been a need to rethink how optimizing Java can address these new deployment environments and application architectures.

The Appeal of the Cloud

Cloud computing provides the ability to optimize resource allocation for data. Where companies are billed only for the resources in use, most cloud service providers also offer a host of support services. In addition, cloud computing has branched into IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS offerings.

IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) includes allocating the physical resources required to host the application on the cloud via virtual machines. PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) is a rung higher than IaaS in its inclusion of the APIs (Application Programming Interface) essential for the communication between applications. SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) is pre-written code that can be loaned via licensing.

Businesses, on the other hand, choose between placing their data resources on public clouds (clouds available to anyone, on charge), private clouds (clouds built within and limited to the business enterprise); or hybrid clouds (resource allocation using a combination of public and private clouds). Businesses can scale their resources with ease, choosing different combinations of cloud models.

Java and Cloud Computing

Enterprises looking for business continuity, increased scalability, and cost-efficiency, continue to aim for the cloud. Java developers help these companies actualize the transition. A common computing language in cloud development and Java’s reusability function makes it simple, scalable, modular, and stable, making it easier to write codes.

Java is used in several enterprise cloud applications because of its scalability, stability, and portability. Most major cloud platforms have Java SDKs which ease development and expand capabilities. Java is, therefore, considered the best programming language for AWS.

Java is used for developing applications used in IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. There are many Java development tools. For instance, Oracle Java Cloud is an excellent example of a cloud development tool that helps design and configure Oracle servers.

An Enhanced Java Ecosystem

The complexity of a cloud-native approach does not dwell in the applications but the communication between them. Hence, currently, there are a few setbacks left for the Java ecosystem to overcome. However, the skillful and zealous Java community has been working diligently towards filling the gaps that have emerged in the age of cloud computing and helping to build a bright future for Java EE.

The Java language has undergone considerable improvements, including the functional feature and the Jigsaw project introducing modularity. Thus, now developers can create thinner Java applications that can be scaled easily. Additionally, Java iterations are now released twice a year, which has resulted in a faster evolution of the Java platform. Not only that, new plans and actions have undoubtedly improved the platform and yielded solutions to move towards cloud-native Java.

In conclusion, with continuous improvements and a vibrant community, we see Java being a mainstay for many years to come - especially after the way it has successfully adapted to the age of cloud computing.

Are you looking to capitalize on this industry-wide demand by applying and honing your skills in Java? Then #StayAhead and check out our current opportunities by clicking here:
https://careers.mphasis.com/home/hot-jobs/skill-search/java-developer-jobs.html