What is an application platform?

A modern application platform provides a consistent and reliable application runtime environment, whether for building a customer-facing mobile app, an internal web tool, or a complex system of microservices . By offering a standardized set of services for development, deployment, and operations, these platforms streamline the entire process from an idea to a production-ready application.

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Application platform defined

An application platform is an integrated suite of software services and tools that provides the complete foundation for the application life cycle.

It's designed to help remove the underlying complexity of infrastructure, allowing developers to focus on strategy,rather than managing servers, databases, and networks.

Types of application platforms

Application platforms come in various forms, each tailored to specific development needs and architectural styles.

Web application platforms

This typically refers to a collection of technologies, frameworks, and server environments specifically designed for hosting web applications and APIs. This can range from traditional server stacks to modern, integrated platforms optimized for web delivery.

Mobile application platforms

These platforms provide a comprehensive backend and a set of tools specifically for building applications for mobile devices (iOS and Android). They often include services like user authentication, push notifications, cloud storage, and real-time databases to accelerate mobile development.

Cloud platforms (PaaS)

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings are a fundamental type of cloud-based application platform. They provide a fully managed environment—including servers, networking, storage, and operating systems—where developers can deploy and run their application without worrying about the underlying infrastructure.

Low-code and no-code platforms

Platforms such as low-code and no-code platforms help users to create applications using visual interfaces, drag-and-drop components, and configuration menus, even with limited programming skills. They are designed to accelerate the development of tools, workflow automations, and simple data-driven apps.

Key components of an application platform

An application platform typically consists of several integrated components that work together to support the entire software life cycle.

Development tools

This includes Software Development Kits (SDKs), command-line tools (CLIs), libraries, and IDE plugins that help developers write code more efficiently. These tools provide the building blocks and access points for interacting with the platform's services.

Deployment and hosting

This is the core runtime environment where the application lives once it's built. It handles the provisioning of compute resources, manages application scaling, and ensures the application is available to end-users.

Management and monitoring

These are the tools for observability, providing insights into the application's health and performance. This component includes services for logging, metrics collection, tracing, and alerting to help teams identify and resolve issues quickly.

Security features

A secure platform includes built-in services for identity and access management (IAM), data encryption at rest and in transit, and network security controls. These features help protect the application and its data from unauthorized access and threats.

Integration capabilities

Applications rarely exist in isolation. This component provides the APIs, connectors, and services needed to integrate the application with other systems, such as databases, messaging queues, and third-party services.

Why use an application platform?

For enterprise development teams, leveraging an application platform offers significant strategic advantages.

Accelerated development

By providing pre-built services, frameworks, and automated infrastructure management, application platforms can help reduce the time it takes to build and deploy new applications.

Scalability and reliability

These platforms are engineered for high availability and can help automatically scale resources to handle fluctuating user loads, helping to ensure that applications remain responsive and reliable.

Cost efficiency

Application platforms can lead to lower total cost of ownership by reducing the need for upfront capital expenditure on hardware and minimizing ongoing operational costs related to server maintenance and management.

Simplified operations

Routine operational tasks such as server patching, security updates, and backups are often handled by the platform provider, freeing up operations teams to focus on higher-value activities.

Enhanced security

Platforms typically incorporate security best practices and provide built-in tools for access control and threat protection, reducing the security burden on development teams.

Beginners guide to application development

For those new to building software, the journey from an idea to a fully functional application can seem complex. The process can be broken down into a series of logical steps, and understanding these steps helps clarify where an application platform provides the most value.

Ideation and planning. Every application begins with an idea. This initial phase is about defining the core purpose of the application. Key questions to answer include: What problem does this solve? Who is the target user? What are the essential features needed for the first version (often called a Minimum Viable Product, or MVP)? The outcome of this phase is typically a clear project plan and a set of feature requirements.
Design (UI/UX). This step focuses on the user's experience. User Interface (UI) design involves creating the visual layout of the application—the screens, buttons, and other visual elements. User Experience (UX) design is about the overall feel and flow of the application, ensuring it is intuitive, logical, and easy to use. The result is often a set of wireframes or interactive mockups that serve as a blueprint for the developers.
Choosing the right platform and technology. With a plan and design in hand, you must select the right tools for the job. This is a critical decision point where you choose your application platform. Will this be a mobile app built on a platform like Firebase? A web application deployed on a PaaS like App Engine? Or will it be a collection of containerized microservices managed by GKE or Cloud Run? The choice of platform will heavily influence the development process.
Development. This is the phase where the application is actually built. Developers write the code for both the "frontend" (the user interface that people see and interact with) and the "backend" (the server-side logic, databases, and APIs that power the application). Throughout this process, they use the development tools, SDKs, and services provided by their chosen application platform.
Testing. Before an application can be released to users, it must be thoroughly tested to identify and fix bugs. This involves several layers of testing, including unit tests (testing individual pieces of code), integration tests (testing how different parts of the application work together), and user acceptance testing (allowing actual users to test the application to see if it meets their needs).
Deployment. This is the process of putting the application onto a live server so that users can access it over the internet. A modern application platform dramatically simplifies this step. Instead of manually configuring servers, a developer can often deploy their application with a single command, and the platform handles the rest.
Monitoring and maintenance. Launching an application is not the end of the journey. Once live, the application must be continuously monitored for performance issues, errors, and security vulnerabilities. This ongoing phase involves using the platform's monitoring tools to track application health, fixing bugs as they are discovered, and rolling out updates with new features and improvements over time.

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Example steps to creating a web application on Cloud Run

Deploying a web application on Cloud Run follows a modern, container-native workflow. The process focuses on packaging your application into a container, which provides maximum portability and consistency from your local machine to the cloud.

Step 1: Write your application code.

Develop your web application using your preferred language and framework, such as Python with Flask, Node.js with Express, or Java with Spring Boot. Ensure your application listens for HTTP requests on the port specified by the PORT environment variable.

Step 2: Containerize your application.

Create a Dockerfile in your project's root directory. This text file provides the instructions to build your application's container image, including specifying a base image, copying your source code, installing dependencies (for example, via pip, npm, or mvn), and defining the command to start your application server. (Hint: You can skip this step if you’d like to deploy with source code in Cloud Run. Cloud Run will containerize your code for you.)

Step 3: Build and store your container image.

Use a tool like Cloud Build to automatically build your container image from the Dockerfile and push it to a secure, private registry. Google Cloud's Artifact Registry is the recommended service for storing and managing your container images.

Step 4: Deploy to Cloud Run.

With your container image stored in Artifact Registry , deploy your application using a single command or through the Google Cloud console. You will specify the source image, service name, and region. Cloud Run automatically provisions the necessary infrastructure and provides you with a stable HTTPS URL for your running service.

Step 5: Configure domain and security.

After deployment, you can map a custom domain to your Cloud Run service. You can also configure its IAM policies to control who has permission to invoke the service, helping to ensure that your web application is secure.