What is Cloud Native?
Cloud-Native is a software architecture pattern for developing applications using essential cloud computing principles such as scalability, elasticity, and agility. In this article, we explore the principles, applications, and challenges of cloud-native
Cloud-Native Objectives
Native cloud architectures are designed to improve traditional applications or make new developments with very simple values: faster, better quality and for a lower cost.
The Benefits of Cloud Native are Reflected in its Principles:
Scalability
The possibility that resources and applications scale horizontally or vertically quickly and dynamically, with few restrictions in terms of the hardware on which they are executed.
Speed
Develop, test and deliver quality code much faster. Cloud-Native increases the capacity of the equipment without increasing the resources of the companies.
Marginal Costs
From a strategic point of view, Cloud Native takes advantage of the flexible invoicing of cloud providers as well as the dynamism of paying for additional resources only when necessary. In on-premise environments, it allows you to add or remove hardware dynamically without affecting the base operation of the system.
Cloud-Native Applications
The Cloud Native approach allows you to move quickly, with small, reversible steps and reducing technical risk. This ideal is not easy to obtain, nor is it free. It implies an important change in the culture and philosophy of development as well as multiple technical challenges.
DevOps
DevOps is the way we face the cultural and technical challenges for a cloud-native strategy. The word combines development practices (Dev) with operations (Ops) and allows it to adapt to the Cloud Native environment to ensure that a company consistently delivers quality software – and at the same time – maximizes the return on investment. As the business evolves so do its DevOps practices. If you want to know more about the Cloud native and DevOps then the Devops blog is the best place for you.
Continuous Delivery
Continuous Delivery is the base motivation for cloud-native: deliver software faster, receiving feedback in less time. This practice allows developers to automatically create, test and prepare code changes, checking updates in applications in various dimensions before sending them to their users. All this with the aim of improving the efficiency and speed of software delivery
Microservices
It is the architecture pattern used to effectively expand the software development and delivery process, avoiding the slow strategies and risks of monolithic developments. With Microservices we develop our application in small services totally independently.
Being independent they can use different languages or platforms, be led by different teams and in general be much more aggressive to launch new functionalities without affecting the others. They interact with each other through the exhibition of APIs and maintain their independence. One of the advantages of using Microservices is that they adapt their scale easily to the demand of the system.
Challenges and Considerations
The development of Cloud Native-based solutions falls within the framework of profound changes in the software development paradigm of the industry. The digital transformation demands best practices throughout the software development cycle.
Cloud-Native applications are intentionally developed for a cloud model. They are built – with a rapid pace of development – by small teams focused on each type of functionality guaranteeing scalability, portability between environments, resilience, and agility.
It is important to understand that the operation of systems will change in a Cloud Native world. Infrastructure and operations people go from having a more passive role, maintenance and protection against incidents to be drivers of change processes, automation, and business value generation.
Not all applications have to be converted to Cloud Native, and it is something that business and IT teams must agree to prioritize workloads considering their technical feasibility, strategic importance and return on investment (ROI) on a case-by-case basis. In addition to new developments, where we have a lot of freedom to choose how to do them, the challenges of updating existing platforms require more sophisticated processes of change at the organizational level.
