Best Practices For Working With a Cloud Environment

Cloud environments offer significant flexibility, scalability, and power. However, developers who are new to cloud-based systems may need time to adapt to certain principles and workflows.

Your application may interact with an external web portal, a backend server, or third-party plugins that extend your business logic through the BioT platform. These components are considered part of the overall cloud solution and should be treated as such when planning, building, and operating your system.

This guide outlines best practices for working in a cloud environment, along with the rationale for each one.

Multiple Environments

There’s no single environment for your application. You’ll typically work with development (DEV), staging, and production environments. Keep your code flexible by using environment variables to easily switch API endpoints and services based on the environment.

Duplicate Everything

Avoid reusing the same resources across different environments. For example, do not register the same device in both staging and production. If an issue arises, it will be difficult to trace the source. The same applies to backend services—run dedicated instances for each environment to isolate behavior and debug efficiently.

Automate Your Deployments

If your system includes external plugins or services that interact with BioT environments, automate your deployment pipeline to minimize manual errors and streamline releases. Tools such as Jenkins, Terraform, or GitHub Actions can help automate deployments and improve reliability.

Monitor Your Applications

While BioT actively monitors its platform, it cannot monitor your external services or custom plugins. It’s your responsibility to monitor your full application stack. Use observability tools and performance dashboards to ensure everything is functioning correctly.

Logging

Set up comprehensive logging to track the health and behavior of your applications. Use trace IDs in API calls to track the lifecycle of a request as it moves through your system and BioT. This makes it easier to diagnose performance issues and troubleshoot bugs.

Security and Compliance

Any cloud-stored data that resides outside of BioT requires special attention. Familiarize yourself with the security features of your cloud provider, and follow best practices for encryption, authentication, and access control. Make sure your system complies with all relevant regulations and industry standards, especially when handling sensitive data. Contact BioT if you need help securing your cloud solution.

Plan Ahead for High-Load Operations

The BioT platform is tuned for everyday usage and expected operational load. If you are planning high-intensity activities such as data migrations, large imports/exports, or batch analytics, please reach out to the BioT team in advance.

We will work with you to:

• Assess the expected load and impact
• Allocate temporary resources if necessary
• Collaborate on a migration or execution plan

This ensures that your operation runs smoothly and reliably, without disruption to your system or other users.

Conclusion

Following these best practices will help you build a robust, scalable, and secure cloud-based solution. Whether you’re deploying your first application or scaling to production, these guidelines will help you ensure reliability, compliance, and a better user experience.