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.



Read the App Dev Q3 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.
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.
Citrix Deepens Microsoft Integration to Secure Virtual Work
HAProxy Levels Up Cloud-Native Networking at KubeCon NA 2025
Wasm Breaks Out at KubeCon: Fermyon & Akamai Push Serverless to 75M RPS
Red Hat Extends OpenShift 4.20 with AI Workload Support and Zero Trust Identity
MinIO Positions Container-Native Object Storage for AI Workloads
AI Security Moves Toward Ambient, Autonomous, and Agent-Aware Defense
Unified Gateways, Hybrid Cloud Reality, and the Ingress NGINX Fallout
Mirantis Launches Virtualization Platform on k0rdent
Cloud Foundry Integrates Cloud-Native “Prompt to Cloud” Buildpacks for AI Development
OpenSearch Navigates LLM-Driven Search and Observability
LocalStack Expands Beyond AWS with Multi-Cloud Emulation
Last9 Advances Agentic Automation for Observability
Akuity Demonstrates AI-Driven Operational Automation
CloudBolt Launches Container-Level Kubernetes Cost Allocation
VMware VCF and Canonical Partnership Consolidates Kubernetes with Upstream-First Strategy
CNCF Launches Cloud-Native Certification as Ecosystem Expands to 15 Vendor-Neutral Credentials
Cosmonic Addresses AI Agent Security with WasmCloud 2.0 Kubernetes Integration
AuthZed Positions SpiceDB Enterprise Authorization for AI Agent Security
Cloudsmith Provides A Security-First Artifact Management Messaging
