What Is Cloud-Native | The Application Value of Cloud-Native

For users of cloud computing, it is especially important to understand what cloud-native is. Instead of simply using containers to define your own system, using the original cloud-native system in the design, development, deployment and other cycles will bring huge competitive advantages and fully enjoy the dividends of cloud computing.

What is cloud-native

Cloud native includes several themes such as DevOps, Continuous Delivery, MicroServices, Agile Infrastructure, and The Twelve-Factor App. Cloud native is an application designed for the "cloud", so the technology partially relies on the three-tier concept of traditional cloud computing, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). The definition of cloud native is constantly changing. The same organization has different definitions at different times, and different organizations have different definitions at the same time.

Cloud native can literally be divided into two parts: cloud and native. Cloud is relative to local. Traditional applications must run on local servers. Now popular applications are running in the cloud. Native means home-grown. When we started designing the application, we considered that the application will run in the cloud environment in the future, and we should make full use of the advantages of cloud resources, such as the elasticity and distributed advantages of cloud services. Native growth and survival in the cloud environment.
Cloud native has the characteristics of cloud: network access, remote deployment and execution, scalable and elastic scaling, sharing, self-service use on demand, high availability, remote monitoring of billing and auditing, standardized delivery and location-independent, etc.

At present, CNCF has given three major characteristics of cloud-native applications:
(1) Containerized packaging: Based on containers, improve the overall development level, form code, and component reuse, and simplify the maintenance of cloud-native applications. Run applications and processes in containers and deploy them as independent units of application, enabling a high level of resource isolation.
(2) Dynamic management: dynamic management and scheduling through a centralized scheduling system.
(3) Microservice-oriented: clarify the dependencies between services and decouple them from each other.

The four core elements of cloud-native are microservice technology, DevOps, continuous delivery, and containerization.

The application value of cloud native

(1) Fast iteration
Leveraging cloud-native application development means using agile and extensible components, such as containers, represented by Kubernetes, to provide discrete and reusable capabilities that are integrated in a well-described way, even across technology boundaries such as multi-cloud. Enables delivery teams to iterate rapidly using repetitive automation and orchestration.

(2) Automatic deployment
Cloud-native approaches are far superior to traditional virtualization-oriented business processes, which require significant effort to build development environments, as well as other disparate environments in the software delivery process. Cloud-native architectures, on the other hand, feature automation and composition, and rely on a foundation of reliable, proven, and audited known-good processes, delivering agile delivery without repetitive human intervention.

(3) Independent and efficient
Cloud-native brings a microservice-based architecture. A microservice is basically an application service that can be released independently, so it can be upgraded, grayscale, or reused as an independent component, and has less impact on the entire large application. It can be completed by a special organization alone. The relying party can fully develop as long as the input and output ports are determined, and even the organizational structure of the entire team will be more streamlined, so the communication cost is low and the efficiency is high.