A global survey found that while 95% of developers and business leaders are familiar with cloud development environments (CDEs), the reasons for adopting one vary widely. The survey polled 223 developers and business leaders working for organizations with more than 2,000 workers and 250 developers.

Conducted by Coder, a provider of a CDE, the survey, for example, found that while 15% cited optimizing the developer environment setup process as a reason for adopting a CDE, another 14% cited making management tasks such as onboarding or improving remote access easier.

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14%

Which of the following best describes how you currently monitor and manage systems across your hybrid cloud environment?(Required)

Multiple separate tools for different environments

Multiple separate tools for different monitoring and management functions

Single consolidated dashboard

Custom built monitoring and management solution

No full monitoring and management solution

Don’t know

How valuable would it be for your monitoring and management solution to incorporate predictive analytics to help you identify and address system issues that are critical and not waste time or effort working through all the data and “noise” that is not critical?(Required)

Extremely valuable

Moderately valuable

Somewhat valuable

Slightly valuable

Not valuable

How do you most typically address potential system issues BEFORE they impact your operations?(Required)

Automated workflows and playbooks to remediate potential issues as soon as they are detected

An orchestrated response process that leverages automation, AI, and human expertise to rapidly respond to potential issues

Advanced monitoring tools such as predictive analytics and anomaly detection to proactively identify and address potential issues

Respond to issues as they arise, using manual processes and troubleshooting techniques

A combination of automated remediation, orchestrated response, and/or proactive monitoring to address potential system issues

Don’t know

Other

What methods does your organization use to control and monitor cloud/IT spending?(Required)

Centralized procurement processes

Pre-approved budget thresholds

Automated cost monitoring tools

Department-level spending controls

Regular cost audits and reviews

Cloud cost optimization platform

Approval workflows for resource provisioning

Native financial operations tools provided by the cloud provider

No formal controls in place

Don’t know

Other

Please specify:

Which methods do you rely on most to detect security vulnerabilities in your systems?(Required)

Automated scanning tools

Manual assessments

Vendor notifications

Threat modeling (for early detection)

None of these

Don’t know

Other

Please specify:

What are the TWO most common ways you prioritize vulnerabilities to address within your environment?(Required)

Based on potential impact

Based on exploitability

Regulatory compliance requirements

Based on CVSS scores

Risk-based analysis of multiple factors

First-in-first-out approach

No formal prioritization process

Don’t know

How do you typically handle system updates and security patches?(Required)

Automated updates and patches

Manually review and apply updates and patches on a regular schedule

A combination of automation and manual review

Apply updates and patches on an as-needed basis.

Outsourced update and patch management

No defined process

Don’t know

Other

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Coder CEO Rob Whiteley said while CDEs clearly improve the productivity of application development teams and improve security by reducing the amount of source code running on notebook and desktop workstations, organizations looking to adopt CDEs need a significant amount of cultural resistance. Application developers have historically set up their own development environments on their own local machines. That approach, however, means that in addition to making it more challenging to collaborate also requires organizations to spend significant time and effort locking down each endpoint being employed by their developers, noted Whiteley.

In fact, those issues are why many platform engineering teams formed to centralize the management of DevOps workflows are implementing CDEs, he added. The ultimate goal is to establish a set of guardrails while still enabling developers to self-service their tooling requirements, noted Whiteley.

In fact, many DevOps teams have already built a homegrown version of a CDE that they currently maintain. Coder and other providers of CDEs are making a case for using a platform supported by a vendor rather than devoting resources to supporting a custom CDE, said Whiteley.

As DevOps workflows continue to evolve in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), it’s only a matter of time before more organizations embrace CDEs, he added. The sheer volume of data that developers will be working with will make it impractical to continue to use local machines to build applications, said Whiteley.

Regardless of the motivation for adopting CDEs, significant cultural changes are coming to DevOps workflows that need to evolve as application development continues to become more distributed. In the post-COVID-19 era, it’s now not uncommon for application development teams to consist of IT professionals working in different time zones. That creates a pressing need to leverage cloud services to provide the level of collaboration those teams need to achieve.

It’s not clear how many CDEs have been deployed, but as the pace at which applications are being built and deployed continues to accelerate, the days when organizations could allow each developer to maintain their own development environment are coming to an end. Organizations need to determine as quickly as possible whether the code being created will actually run in a production environment. The more time spent trying to reconcile differences between development environments and the production environment where the application runs, the longer it will take to complete any given project.

Unfortunately, time is the one thing that most DevOps teams no longer have the luxury of spending on application development initiatives that, in addition to multiplying, are also becoming much more complex to manage with each passing day.