Cloud-Native- A Solution for Organizations
Introduction: Cloud Native
It is only recently that the term cloud-native has come into wide spread use. And before we go deep
into this, let us understand what is it, and what are its attributes?
Cloud-native is a way in which the developers build and run applications while taking full
advantage of the benefits of the cloud computing delivery model and container orchestration.
Cloud-native applications are developed to run in the cloud, taking the focus away from machines and onto the actual services.
As
microservices are used during the architecture of the cloud-native applications in place
of monolithic application structure, they depend on the
containers for the packaging of the
application’s libraries and processes for placement. These
microservices permit the
developers to make peaceable apps that are made as individual modules focused on executing single services.
The container orchestration tools help the makers of the applications to synchronize how an application’s containers will function, along with the scaling and deployment.
While talking about the development of the cloud-native app, we need to shift to a
DevOps operating structure. And this shift leads to the working of development and operations teams together, for a faster and smoother production process.
Now below are some of the
attributes of cloud-native applications:
- Cloud-native applications are packaged as lightweight containers.
- They are built with best-of-breed languages and frameworks.
- They are structured as loosely coupled microservices.
- The cloud-native apps are centered on APIs for interaction and collaboration.
- They are deployed on self-service, elastic, and cloud infrastructure.
Now that we know what cloud-native is and what its attributes are. let's move on to the
principles of cloud-native architecture:
Principle-1: Build for automation
While working on the development of software systems, automation, it turns out, is always the best option. And the cloud has made it easier than ever to automate the architecture
along with the components that are to be placed above it. Although the upfront investment is most often higher, an automated solution will always pay off in the end. It also turns out to be the best in terms of resilience and performance of the system. The automated processes help in repairing, scaling, and deploying your system quicker than on that relies on human effort.
One can automate the below-mentioned areas in cloud-native systems:
- Infrastructure
- Continuous Integration or Continuous Delivery
- Scale-up and scale-down of the system
- Monitoring and Recovery
Principle-2: Be careful with state
Be it the user data or the system state, the storing of the state is the toughest part of the cloud-
native architecture. So, while you are developing your system, you should try to be
intentional about when and how to store state, and design components to be stateless wherever
needed.
Stateless components are easy to:
- Scale: To scale up, all you need to do is to add more copies. While to scale down, train
instances to dismiss once they are done with their current work.
- Repair: When you want to repair a failed instance of a component, just dismiss it as
smoothly as possible and call for a replacement.
- Roll-back: In case you come across a bad deployment, stateless components can easily
be rolled back, as you can dismiss them and plan to launch instances of the old version.
- Load-Balance across: If the components are stateless in the system, load balancing is
much easier, as any instance can manage any request. Load balancing in stateful components is tough.
Principle-3: Go for managed services
Most of the providers of the cloud, offer the users a perfect set of managed services, providing
every kind of function to help ease the pain in handling backend software or
architecture. Still, most of the companies prefer to be careful while taking advantage of these
services because they are worried about being locked into a given provider. Though the
concern is valid, managed services can frequently save the firms immensely in time
and operational overhead.
Principle-4: Practice defense
Traditional architectures place the bulk of their trust in perimeter security. Unfortunately, this method is vulnerable to insider attacks as well as external threats. Adding to this, the growing
pressure to provide flexible, mobile applications has furthermore undermined the network
perimeter.
Cloud-native architecture is quite prone to external attacks and as a result, prefers an approach of defense-in-depth by applying authentication between each component
thereby reducing the trust between those components. As a result, there is no inside and outside, or in a sense, any perimeter to protect. The architecture can also add rate limiting and script injection for defense.
Principle-5: Keep architecting
One prominent characteristic of a cloud-native system is that it keeps evolving, and that is
similarly true of its architecture. As a cloud-native architect, you should constantly try to refine,
simplify and improve the architecture of the system in accordance with the continuous changes in the demands
of the organization, the changes in the landscape of your IT systems, and the changes in the
abilities of your cloud provider itself. The dead, ossifying IT systems will eventually bring the
organization to a standstill making them unable to deal with the new threats and
opportunities.
Now that we have covered the principles of cloud-native architecture let us talk briefly about its
effect on our
ecosystem. In the last few years, the technology around us has changed
drastically. And, in the last 5 years, the technology of cloud-native computing has also evolved a
lot. As a result of this, the way in which the software is developed has also
changed. It has mainly affected the speed of the team’s delivery, which has turned out to be
beneficial for organizations and their customers.
The cloud-native allows companies to be competitive in big markets. It has become the
reason for the success of many tech powerhouses and digital-native companies like cab
services providers, as an example.
While well-developed cloud natives are best suited for the big organizations, small
enterprises are now replicating cloud-native frameworks in order to compete in the market place.
Conclusion
If you are having a problem with adding new code to your software and facing issues in meeting
deadlines, then cloud-native is a solution for you. It is the best option when it comes to timely
deliveries and adding new code to the system.
It has been developed with a focus on customer-centricity, quality, and end-to-end
visibility. It helps organizations in assessment, selection of the correct methodology,
platforms, services, and new-generation architectural patterns.
Though it might cost you a bit, it is highly beneficial for business growth and in helping teams to
work more efficiently and quickly. Here are a few
Pros and cons of cloud-native architecture you
should know as well:
Pros:
- It makes the process of compliance quicker, which is important for organizations.
- It takes care of all the bugs and slow loading speed.
- To assist a variant and growing customer base, cloud-native architecture has been allowing scalable development. It also helps in managing variable costs.
- It is one of the most reliable technologies invented for organizations.
- According to its services, it is very cost-efficient.
Cons:
Though there are various advantages of cloud-native, there are a few drawbacks of the cloud-
native:
- The cost you are paying for cloud-native might be high for some organizations.
- Applications that are stored on a specific cloud platforms are not easy to transfer to other
cloud platforms. It takes a lot of rewriting and refactoring of the code.
- If the applications continue to run on the target cloud platform for a long time, the
users will be limited getting back their investment in code changes and testing.
Reference
Books-
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- Hands-On Cloud-Native Microservices with Jakarta EE
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- Hands-On Microservices with Kotlin
- JavaScript Cloud Native Development Cookbook
Links-
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- Cloud-Native Architecture: What Is It and Why Is It So Important?
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- Cloud-native architectures are reshaping the enterprise
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- 5 principles for cloud-native architecture
- What is Cloud Native?