Resiliency posture puts enterprises in the driver’s seat ahead of the AI app boom

Ready or not, a new app boom is coming. In the next three years, we could see the creation of a billion—yes, a billion—new applications…and that’s thanks to generative AI.

Generative AI accelerates app development through AI code generation and the automation of other steps, including, notably, the generation of test cases used to verify functionality—a traditionally time-consuming process.

AI-powered tools and development environments are helping app developers work better, taking rote tasks off their plates and freeing up bandwidth for more innovation.

But amid the anticipation, a word of caution for enterprises: As you incorporate more new apps into everyday workflows, you face more risk if something goes awry.

In software development, a resilient application recovers quickly from unexpected disruptions or failures, with little to no impact on productivity.

But how can enterprises assess whether applications are resilient?

The answer lies in non-functional requirements, or NFRs. Unlike functional requirements—which refer to what a system must do—non-functional requirements are criteria for a system’s performance and capabilities. 

When assessing application resiliency, there are six types of NFRs that matter most:

• Maintainability: How easy it is to perform maintenance on an app through modifications. Strategies such as modular design, automated testing, continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD), version control and regular refactoring can improve maintainability.

• Observability: How well the internal state of an app can be assessed based on its external outputs. App observability can be achieved through approaches such as comprehensive logging, distributed tracing and the use of monitoring tools.

• Recoverability: How quickly and easily an app can be returned to a fully operational state. High recoverability is attainable through strategies such as regularly backing up data, establishing system redundancy and implementing test and restore processes.

• Availability: The proportion of time (such as a percentage of a year) that an app or other system is operational and accessible for use. Strategies such as load balancing, regular maintenance and failover (transferring workloads from a failing primary system onto a functioning secondary one) can help apps reach high availability.

• Usability: How user-friendly and intuitive an application is. The usability of an app can be improved through user-centered design approaches that ensure interfaces are simple, consistent and accessible.

• Scalability: The ability of an app to handle increased workloads efficiently. Common strategies for increasing scalability include horizontal and vertical scaling, caching, load balancing and the use of microservices.

Understanding the key non-functional requirements is only half the battle; implementing measures to track NFRs is the other.

Today, too many enterprises are running blind; there is either no visibility or only partial visibility into the resilience posture. For example, in a recent case, an end user was trying to access a cloud-based application which showed “five 9s” availability, meaning it was 99.999% available during a given time period. Yet the app wasn’t running as expected.

The culprit, it turned out, was a network glitch that suspended the app’s usability. Having information on usability, in addition to availability, could have helped the enterprise identify and address the glitch quickly, salvaging the end user’s experience.

AI could have prevented that.

For instance, IBM’s resilience solution, IBM Concert®, uses AI-powered real-time analytics to assess applications and provide resiliency scores based on criteria related to the six NFRs. It also provides recommendations for addressing issues and can automate remediation of common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) for faster resolution and reduced downtime.

As the generative AI app boom nears, enterprises can't wait to take the risk out of adopting new applications. An effective resiliency posture allows you to put downtime in your rearview.