An In-Depth Guide to Understanding Cloud Native

In 2013, Matt Stine of Pivotal introduced the concept of cloud-native. Drawing on his extensive experience in architecture design and consulting, Stine encapsulated the core ideas of cloud-native. Over time, these ideas have been refined and expanded by the community, gaining maturity with the establishment of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in 2015. That same year, Pivotal provided a clear definition of cloud-native, emphasizing it as an approach to building and running applications that fully leverage the benefits of cloud computing.

Cloud Native Concepts

According to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), a cloud native is a transformative approach to software development that leverages technologies such as containers, service mesh, microservices, immutable infrastructure, and declarative APIs to build and deploy scalable applications across diverse cloud environments. Cloud computing has become the prevailing choice for IT development, laying the groundwork for the evolution of cloud native, which represents the next phase of this technological advancement.

The adoption of cloud native technologies brings significant technical benefits, enabling enterprises to innovate faster and more efficiently. As Gartner predicts, by 2023, 70% of global enterprises will have at least three containerized applications in production, underscoring the growing importance of cloud native in modern business operations.

Cloud native is deeply intertwined with a new generation of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) technologies and development paradigms, providing the most direct path to unlocking the full potential of cloud computing. This approach not only accelerates the advancement of cloud computing but also enhances cloud platforms and services. The CNCF plays a crucial role in standardizing cloud native technologies while ensuring that organizations avoid vendor lock-in.

Key Cloud Native Components:

• Containerization: Also known as operating system-level virtualization, this technology allows multiple isolated user-space instances, known as containers, to run independently within a single operating system kernel. This enables more efficient resource utilization and scalability.

• Microservices: This architectural style breaks down complex, large-scale applications into smaller, independently functioning components. Each microservice focuses on a specific responsibility; these components communicate through language-agnostic APIs.

• Service Mesh: A service mesh abstracts the communication between microservices, separating it from the service processes themselves. It programmatically manages service interactions and decouples the data plane from the control plane, enhancing scalability and reliability.

• Immutable Infrastructure: In this approach, once an infrastructure instance is created, it becomes immutable or read-only. Any modifications or upgrades are made by replacing the instance with a new one, ensuring consistency and stability.

• Declarative API: Unlike imperative APIs that specify exact commands, declarative APIs define the desired state of the system, allowing for more flexible and automated deployment and control processes.

Cloud-native is not just an upgrade in application architecture but also a significant advancement in cloud platforms and services, driving the next wave of innovation in the tech industry.

Cloud Native Applications

Pivotal and Red Hat provide their interpretations of cloud native applications.

Pivotal's Perspective: Cloud native applications are specifically designed for the cloud model. These applications are built and deployed rapidly by small, dedicated feature teams on a platform that facilitates easy scalability and hardware decoupling. This approach offers organizations enhanced agility, resilience, and portability across different cloud environments. 

Red Hat's Perspective: Cloud-native applications are made up of a collection of small, independent, and loosely connected services. They are designed to provide real business value, such as the ability to swiftly integrate user feedback for continuous improvement. In essence, cloud-native app development speeds up the process of creating new applications, optimizing existing ones, and seamlessly connecting them. The objective is to deliver the applications that users want at the speed required by the business. For more details, please visit Red Hat's website: Red Hat Cloud Native Apps.

Overall Understanding of Cloud Native Applications

Cloud native applications are designed to operate in the cloud, leveraging the unique advantages that the cloud model offers. These applications are packaged, distributed, and deployed using containers, allowing for enhanced flexibility and scalability. By adopting a microservices architecture, these applications can fully utilize cloud component services, enabling more efficient and modular development.

To ensure continuous delivery of products and services, organizations employ DevOps practices alongside a CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) toolchain. In essence, cloud native represents both an approach and a set of practices, with cloud native applications being the tangible outcomes of this methodology.

The underlying platform provides essential technical support for cloud native implementations, while products and services are delivered based on four key technologies and organizational structures inherent to the cloud native paradigm.

Conclusion

Incorporating cloud-native principles into your IT strategy is not just about staying current—it's about unlocking the full potential of your applications and infrastructure. At FS, we understand the critical role that cloud-native technologies play in modern business operations. That’s why we offer a comprehensive range of data center solutions designed to seamlessly integrate with cloud-native environments. From high-performance data center switches to advanced optical transceivers, our products are engineered to support scalable, resilient, and secure cloud-native applications. Trust FS to provide the infrastructure that powers your innovation in the cloud. Explore our offerings today and take the next step in your cloud-native journey.