Cloud-native is an approach to building and operating applications that fully exploits the advantages of cloud computing models. It emphasizes scalable, elastic infrastructures, and utilizes technologies like containers, microservices, and continuous delivery, to achieve high agility and resilience.
Cloud-native computing is a design philosophy wherein applications are built to thrive in dynamic, virtualized cloud environments. This approach is underpinned by four key pillars: containerization, microservices, dynamic orchestration, and continuous delivery. At its core, cloud-native is about creating and deploying applications that are as agile, flexible, and robust as the cloud infrastructures they inhabit.
Containerization involves packaging applications and their dependencies into containers, which can be easily moved across different cloud environments. The microservices architecture breaks down applications into small, independently scalable services, each running a unique process. This not only improves resilience and ease of management but also facilitates continuous integration and development (CI/CD) practices.
Dynamic orchestration tools like Kubernetes manage these containers, automating their deployment, scaling, and operations. This enables the coveted elasticity of cloud-native apps, allowing them to adapt quickly to varying workloads. Continuous delivery ensures that new features can be deployed frequently and reliably, fostering innovation and reducing time-to-market.
Cloud-native infrastructure also prioritizes observability and monitoring, providing deep insights into application performance and health, which is crucial for maintaining system reliability. By leveraging cloud-native principles, organizations can create systems that are not only resilient to changes and failures but also optimized for continuous improvement.