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The Definitive Guide to

Cloud Native

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) defines cloud native as scalable applications running in modern dynamic environments. It’s about how applications are created and deployed, not whether they sit on a public, private, or hybrid cloud. 

 

Introduction of Cloud Native

Enterprises that migrate from an on-premises environment to a cloud-friendly world is one in which IT needs to rethink their infrastructure. The infrastructure becomes spread out among multiple IT environments while applications are distributed to support a company’s digital transformation.

In such a distributed and more complex IT environment, it’s essential for enterprise architects, CIOs and business leaders to get an automated and comprehensive overview of the infrastructure and applications across the company.

As the IT infrastructure progressively moves towards the cloud, enterprises need to understand not only the business value of developing and deploying Cloud Native applications but also how to deal with the strategic IT management challenges in the multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments. Despite the Cloud Native term becoming pervasive, enterprises don’t fully understand how to realize the true potential of being Cloud Native.

What does being Cloud Native really mean and why is it important? What should enterprise architects, CIOs and developers know to accelerate and optimize this transition towards being Cloud Native?

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What is Cloud Native?

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) defines Cloud Native as scalable applications running in modern dynamic environments. It’s about how applications are created and deployed, not whether they sit on a public, private, or hybrid cloud. Cloud Native apps are designed to scale horizontally rather than vertically and rely on technologies such as containers, microservices, and APIs.

The scalability allows microservice modules to refine themselves individually without being dependent on other processes. The technology ensures that systems developed with a Cloud Native approach are resilient, scalable, and reusable.

In other words, using a Cloud Native Strategy enables services to be used across applications and other services.Cloud_Native

While Cloud Native is important in today’s development world, it’s important to also understand the evolution of Cloud Native technology.

Winning in the Cloud Native World [White Paper]: A White Paper on Cloud Native IT management for enterprises. »

 

Why is Cloud Native important?

Adopting Cloud Native technologies and practices enables companies to create software in-house, allows those in business departments such as finance to closely partner with IT, keep up with competitors, and deliver better services to their customers. CNCF technologies enable cloud portability without vendor lock-in.

In fact, being Cloud Native has clear advantages compared to traditional development and computing:

  • Faster code development and deployment 
  • Higher turnaround of services 
  • Adoption of serverless computing 
  • More impetus to DevOps processes 
  • Scalability 
  • Resiliency 
  • Reusable services 

This fast software service delivery is due largely to the fact that it’s much easier for organizations using either a single or multi-cloud strategy to commission and decommission IT assets on cloud platforms (e.g.,a new server commissioning takes less than 30 seconds on Amazon Web Services). A Cloud Native strategy enables operational overheads of IT to get passed on to the cloud vendors, allowing enterprises to focus their efforts on business innovation and the customer.

 

What is Cloud Native Development?

So why is Cloud Native important for developers? With a Cloud Native architecture, developers need to understand the basics of what’s required for creating modern Cloud Native applications. Development includes implementing an Agile methodology, as well as adopting DevOps practices, microservices, single or multi-cloud strategy, and containers like Kubernetes and Docker.

Microservices are the foundation of a Cloud Native architecture. These microservices are designed to run and execute different functions within the application. For example, one microservice may be designed to implement a process while another may be used to run that process.

These microservices are often packaged into containers so developers can work on one set of microservices at a time versus an entire Cloud Native application.

Software developers should consider certain elements when creating Cloud Native applications:

  • Resiliency: Cloud Native applications need to work no matter what. Develop an application by assuming the worst-case scenario so that the final product is a fail-safe app.
  • Scalable: Cloud Native applications need to support the growth of an organization’s Cloud Native infrastructure and landscape. Support for storage, databases, and networking, for example, requires the ability to scale the Cloud Native application to meet growing demands. Cloud-Native applications adjust accordingly to the changing workload.
  • Support multiple languages and frameworks: Cloud Native applications use the languages and frameworks most relevant for each service.
  • Repurpose services: Cloud Native applications should be able to reuse the services across applications and services rather than creating a new one for each purpose.
  • APIs: Cloud Native applications use APIs such as representational state transfer (REST), Google remote procedure call (gRPC), and others in Cloud Native services.
  • Agile DevOps:Cloud Native applications require services to be managed using agile DevOps processes.
  • Governance: Cloud Native applications require a governance model using a defined set of policies. The policies are set by IT operations so that they can allocate the right resources for developers and DevOps teams to share across their departments.

 

What are Cloud Native Challenges?

While applications may be cloud-friendly, there is still a difference between those that are truly Cloud Native. The infrastructure in an enterprise is increasingly becoming more and more complex. As companies adopt a digital transformation strategy, they’re finding that moving from an on-premises environment to a Cloud Native is not a simple process. In fact, enterprise architects, developers, and CIOs continue to face multiple challenges to transform their organization from an on-premises environment to the cloud.

  • Complexity: IT operations supports a complex, distributed enterprise infrastructure, which requires the need to automatically simplify the overarching view of the environment.
  • Hardware reliance: Microservices rely on operating systems and/or machines that utilize capabilities for certain operations such as solid-state drives or GPUs, which means the hardware cannot fail.
  • Governance: Detecting risks and identifying vulnerabilities is imperative with the potential exposure to security and compliance issues.
  • DevOps: Despite the rise of DevOps, a perfect collaboration between Dev and Ops is not yet readily apparent as these teams continue searching for the best ways of working together.
  • Time: It can be a time-consuming and tedious process to migrate IT assets to the cloud.
  • Redesign and rearchitect: It’s an extensive effort to redesign and rearchitect applications for the cloud.

 

The Cloud Native Strategy and Roadmap

Careful thought and planning is required for adopting a Cloud Native strategy and roadmap. For enterprise architects and CIOs thinking about transforming their organization to support the Cloud Native world, a few important points should be considered.

IT operation teams must change to support a Cloud Native world. Instead of just focusing on the IT infrastructure, they need to deliver value to the business and become more involved with improving processes and automation rather than just being the gatekeepers of technology for their organization.

Indeed, moving to a Cloud Native requires workloads to be prioritized in the infrastructure. In the new Cloud Native world, the synergy expected between the business and IT professional requires strong collaboration to assess how the two groups work together while also determining how well the workloads work in the Cloud Native world. The teams will need to prioritize legacy and new/emerging workloads to determine whether those workloads should move towards becoming Cloud Native or whether they should stay the same.

Developers will need to standardize their platform and services to support a Cloud Native platform using the 12-factor app principles and microservices architecture. These 12 factors embody the characteristics of a Cloud Native application.

 

Cloud-Native Summary

Moving to a Cloud-Native world is no easy feat. Support for microservices and the key elements that embody the characteristics of Cloud Native applications should help move an organization towards a Cloud-Native infrastructure with all the support for security inherent in the product.

While adopting Cloud Native applications can be exciting and enable a company to become much more agile, the benefits and challenges of doing so should be carefully addressed to align the Cloud Native strategy with the business.

Answers to frequently asked questions on Cloud Native

What is Cloud Native?

Cloud Native is a horizontally scalable application based on technologies such as containers, microservices and APIs. This concept enables companies to implement technological decisions more agile and faster. Cloud Native considers the creation and provisioning of such applications and not the way cloud storage is used.

What are the advantages of Cloud Native compared to traditional development and computing?

Cloud Native has clear advantages compared to traditional development and computing:

  • Faster code development and deployment
  • Higher turnaround of services
  • Adoption of serverless computing
  • More impetus to DevOps processes
  • Scalability
  • Resiliency
  • Reusable services

What should software developer consider when creating Cloud Native applications?

Resiliency: Cloud Native applications need to work no matter what. Develop an application by assuming the worst-case scenario so that the final product is a fail-safe app.

Scalable: Cloud Native applications need to support the growth of an organization’s Cloud Native infrastructure and landscape. Support for storage, databases, and networking, for example, requires the ability to scale the Cloud Native application to meet growing demands. Cloud Native applications adjust accordingly to the changing workload. Support multiple languages and frameworks: Cloud Native applications use the languages and frameworks most relevant for each service.

Repurpose services: Cloud Native applications should be able to reuse the services across applications and services rather than creating a new one for each purpose.

APIs: Cloud Native applications use APIs such as representational state transfer (REST), Google remote procedure call (gRPC), and others in Cloud Native services.

Agile DevOps:Cloud Native applications require services to be managed using agile DevOps processes.

Governance: Cloud Nativeapplications require a governance model using a defined set of policies. The policies are set by IT operations so that they can allocate the right resources for developers and DevOps teams to share across their departments.

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