Application Development & Modernization

Driving innovation and agility through insights into modern software development, cloud-native architectures, and application lifecycle transformation.

Application Development and Modernization is at the heart of digital innovation—shaping how organizations build, deploy, and scale the software that powers their businesses. Our research practice examines the full spectrum of the app lifecycle, from emerging development frameworks and DevOps pipelines to Kubernetes, microservices, and serverless environments. We highlight how enterprises balance speed, security, and reliability to meet evolving user demands.

As organizations adapt to rapid technological change, the application landscape becomes a primary driver of competitive differentiation. Legacy modernization, platform engineering, and AI-enhanced development are no longer optional—they are strategic imperatives for enabling agility, reducing costs, and meeting customer expectations. Our work explores how businesses align technical innovation with measurable outcomes, from faster release cycles to improved resilience and developer productivity.

We provide independent analysis that connects developer practices with enterprise strategy, helping organizations modernize legacy applications, adopt cloud-native platforms, and optimize delivery pipelines. With coverage spanning Day 0, Day 1, Day 2 operations, observability, DevSecOps, AI-enhanced development, and platform engineering, our insights cut through complexity to show where the market is moving and how organizations can accelerate innovation while reducing risk.

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Beyond the Stack and into AI-Native Workflows, Observability Convergence, and Open Source Acceleration

Read the App Dev Q2 Market Insights Report

A quarterly deep dive into the state of application development and modernization, highlighting emerging practices, technology shifts, and innovations redefining how software is built, deployed, and operated.

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Coverage Areas

Day 0 - Build

The foundation of application success starts before the first line of code. Our Day 0 research explores organizational readiness, architectural choices, and tool selection for modern software development. From cloud-native adoption and platform engineering to environment setup and automation, we analyze how enterprises prepare to build scalable, secure, and resilient applications.

Day 1 - Test & Deploy

Day 1 focuses on getting applications into production quickly and reliably. We cover the operational realities of CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation, testing consistency, and rollback strategies. Our insights help organizations streamline release processes, reduce risk, and deliver value to end users faster—without sacrificing quality or compliance.

Day 2 - Operations & Observability

Running applications at scale brings new challenges in observability, resilience, and optimization. Our Day 2 research examines how enterprises monitor, manage, and continuously improve applications in production. With coverage of incident response, performance management, cost efficiency, and AI-driven operations, we provide a clear view of what it takes to sustain and evolve business-critical software.

DevSecOps

Security must be embedded across the entire application lifecycle. Our DevSecOps coverage highlights how organizations integrate security into development pipelines, balance speed with protection, and foster collaboration between developers, operations, and security teams. From compliance automation to secure coding practices, we spotlight strategies that reduce risk while enabling faster, safer innovation.