Cloud native, a term you’ve probably heard of. However, it is not simply hosting and running an application in the cloud.
So, what is Cloud Native then? And how can you become native in the cloud?
And even more importantly: Should your business go cloud native?
For this example, let's take an e-commerce store's home page within a traditional, monolithic structure.
Home page traditional structure
As you can see, it is one big, grouped application. This makes it hard to improve the app, as you cannot enhance features separately.
Let’s explain:
If you want to update your application or improve ONLY your shopping cart feature, you have to update the entire application. This is time-consuming, not cost-effective and even risky.
Now let’s consider the home page within a modern cloud architecture.
Home page cloud native architecture structure
In this architecture, the e-commerce store will become more scalable due to microservices.
In other words, we can break down the different components of the application into smaller, independent services.
For example, you could have separate services for the shopping cart, product catalogue, and user authentication.
In the image above, you can see how the e-commerce store’s home page is broken down into four independent microservices:
Each of these services can be updated, scaled or deployed independently so you have more flexibility and efficiency.
If you need to improve the shopping cart feature, you can update just that microservice without updating the other parts of the site. This is possible because each service is uncoupled from others. This leads to quicker updates, reduced risk of downtime, and more focused development efforts.
Also, each microservice can be scaled independently based on demand. This optimises resource use and improves performance. Cloud native systems have a key advantage. They use automation and dynamic scaling to manage resources and deploy services quickly. This makes their applications highly scalable.
Unfortunately, simply running an application in the cloud does not make it Cloud Native. For an application to be so, there are at least four pillars to consider.
Microservices let each part of an app scale independently. This boosts agility and cuts deployment times.
By using microservice, you can effectively build your software and develop a delivery process. Microservices make it possible to develop your application in small services, which are completely independent.
Microservices are loose and communicate with each other through well-defined APIs.
Teams can own their services, deploy them independently and efficiently, because they are designed to be small.
For instance: A food delivery platform might have three services. An order management service, a restaurant service, and a delivery tracking service.
Containers are lightweight components that bundle software and its dependencies into a single package. Just like packaging your orders in delivery boxes, a container packages software.
With containers, you can move code from machine to machine without worrying about possible errors.
Why? Because machine and code are deployed in the same containers.
Compared to conventional virtual machines, containers are more efficient because they share the host system's kernel. Thus, it reduces overhead and speeds up start times. Containers have all the resources to run a microservice in any environment.
Its main aim is to package Cloud Native applications with their dependencies. Doing so, they allow them to run across different environments consistently. Container orchestration plays a crucial role herein by managing and scaling these containers.
Container orchestration = the process of automating the management of containers. It handles tasks like deploying, scaling, and monitoring containers to ensure they run smoothly. 
As the number of microservices grows, container orchestration manages great amounts of containers. By doing so, all the microservices can run smoothly as a single unified application.
Take for example Kubernetes: The tool manages containers. It can detect faults, recover from failures, and balance workloads across microservices.
Kubernetes automates the deployment, scaling, and operations of application containers. It ensures your apps are resilient and high-performing.
Development processes are key to leveraging a microservices architecture. In a microservices architecture, services are developed independently.
On the other hand, deployment and scaling are handled separately, most of the times by operations teams or automated processes.
This requires close collaboration between development and operations teams. Alongside, it also needs automation to streamline the development and deployment workflow. This is where DevOps arrives.
A key part of DevOps is Continuous Innovation (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD). It helps teams automate software development and deployment, which improves speed and reliability.
CI means merging code changes into a Git repository. Then, run tests to confirm the code works. CD refers to automating software deployment to production environments using deployment pipelines or GitOps.
In other words, developers can create, test and prepare code changes automatically. This improves the velocity and efficiency of software delivery.
The last pillar is the adoption of open standards. As a Cloud Native ecosystem matures, its key parts standardise. Best practices then become widely available.
Being Cloud Native means using standardised components as building blocks. It also means following best practices as they become available.
Why does Cloud Native matter? It can help you achieve greater efficiency and scalability in your public cloud usage.
Cloud Native can improve your reliability, security, and operations. However, it can only achieve this if you use the Cloud provider's best practices and tools.
After years of supporting customers, we see these key benefits:
✅ Increased scalability
Cloud Native technologies allow your business to scale resources up or down based on demand, ensuring you can handle traffic spikes without overprovisioning infrastructure.
✅ Reliability
Containerised orchestrators like Kubernetes offer self-healing capabilities, ensuring resilience and continuity of business operations.
✅ Reduced downtime
Container and virtualisation technologies enable you to break down applications into smaller parts and run each in its own space. This simplifies maintenance, reducing downtime and keeping customers satisfied
✅ Sustainability (your business and the climate)
Adopting Cloud Native technologies can lead to more efficient use of resources, reducing your business's environmental footprint and supporting sustainability efforts.
✅ Decrease in overhead and costs
Cloud Native environments reduce the need for maintaining physical hardware and related infrastructure, resulting in lower operational expenses.
✅ Easier development and faster time to market for new features
Cloud Native development streamlines the process, allowing teams to deploy new features more quickly and respond to market needs faster.
✅ Financial flexibility
Cloud services operate on a pay-as-you-go model, providing on-demand computing resources without hefty upfront costs.
✅ Enhanced security
Cloud Native platforms have built-in security features and regular updates, protecting your applications from the latest threats. Microservices isolate vulnerabilities, limiting the impact of breaches.
✅ Faster Development
Agile development practices and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) will give you a quicker time-to-market.
✅ Improved collaboration
Cloud Native technologies enhance collaboration among teams through DevOps practices, leading to efficient workflows and faster issue resolution.
Read more about how we help organisations like yours become (more) Cloud Native.
Cloud Native by InterceptOn-premises environments use traditional architectures. They have a fixed infrastructure. Moving an on-premises environment to the Cloud doesn’t mean your architectures use all the features and benefits. They often create more overhead as they need more maintenance, configuration and management.
For instance: a monolithic application architecture on the Cloud may lead to over-provisioning, under-utilization, or performance bottlenecks, as the application cannot adjust to the demand by scaling up or down dynamically.
Traditional apps may struggle in the Cloud. They may not follow Cloud Native principles, like microservices, containers, and DevOps. These principles can help you build better, more agile apps that use the Cloud. They will be more modular and resilient.
Now let's see the challenges for those who’d like to follow in the footsteps of those who have already implemented a Cloud Native approach.
If only transitioning to Cloud Native were as easy as packaging a few applications into containers, moving them to the cloud and deploying them onto a cluster. But like many great changes, Cloud Native transformation comes with digital upstarts and challenges.
The first and perhaps the biggest challenge is that a Cloud Native approach is a radical shift from a traditional method. We see companies that often struggle with the new paradigms introduced by cloud services and microservice architectures.
A major challenge is the in-house expertise. All employees need training to understand and apply the new concepts.
Besides, some organisations may lack the appropriate tools or processes to gain visibility and control over their cloud assets. They do not easily identify what issues will come up, nor do they know who is responsible for which parts of the cloud.
In a nutshell, the challenges of becoming cloud native are:
Making optimal use of resource - pay-as-you-go can be expensive if not used optimally (which is why you need the know-how)
Managing complexity as more services and components are added to the mix
Dealing with ephemeral infrastructure, which can make debugging and troubleshooting difficult
Having all components working together seamlessly
To adopt cloud native principles, you must understand your organisation's culture, processes, and challenges.
If you want to shift towards Cloud Native, then start prioritising collaboration and careful planning. A clear vision and strong leadership will help you. But, small steps without a strong vision can be fine too.
When adopting a cloud native approach, start by asking yourself:
You’ll need an answer to these questions during the transition from traditional on-premises architectures to a true Cloud Native approach.
The answer is: it depends on the specific needs of your application and organisation. The decision is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Sometimes, the dev team doesn't need to change their app and embracing this philosophy might not be needed. Then, a simpler deployment model could be enough or a traditional monolithic architecture.
However, even small-sized applications can become Cloud Native, even if they don’t adopt a microservice architecture. However, for larger and more intricate applications, Cloud Native can offer a wide range of benefits such as:
Increased scalability
Enhanced availability
Faster development cycles
In the end, the decision to adopt a Cloud Native strategy should be based on a careful evaluation of:
The application's requirements
The organisation's resources
A Cloud Native approach can, if done right, help organisations. It can let them develop and deploy applications faster. These apps will be more dependable, scalable, and resilient.
Your business should consider a cloud native approach if you want to cut IT infrastructure costs, be more resilient, and be scalable.
Furthermore, being Cloud Native will help you respond quicker to market changes and increasing (or decreasing) customer demands. Also, adopting Cloud Native will improve compliance and security.
This approach ensures your application is efficient, reliable, and easy to manage.
If you’d like to build a Cloud Native app, then it’s important to consider that modern software development practices can help streamline the process. DevOps is such an example. Nonetheless, it is not always required.
What do we mean by this?
DevOps is a set of practices. It combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops). The goal is to shorten the development lifecycle and deliver high-quality software. DevOps approach streamlines application development by promoting:
DevOps approach streamlines application development by promoting:
✅ Collaboration
✅ Automating workflows
✅ Ensuring faster, more reliable deployments
We see a lot of Cloud Native apps (especially SaaS) that make use of tools and technologies such as containerisation (Docker), container orchestration (Kubernetes), and serverless computing (serverless).
These tools help manage the scalability, resilience, and flexibility needed for modern Cloud Native applications.
When transitioning to Cloud Native applications, your team will see several changes.
For instance: CI and CD (CI/CD) pipelines or GitOps practices will become integral. This will lead to reliable and faster updates.
Also, infrastructure as code (IaC) will automate and standardise setups. It will reduce manual configuration errors.
We strongly believe cloud native applications are the future. And we’re not the only ones who think so.
Gartner predicts that, by 2025, at least 85% of organisations will use Cloud Native technologies. And more than 95% of new digital workloads will be deployed on Cloud Native platforms.
To us, Cloud Native is a strategic advantage that can help you optimise your public cloud usage and deliver more value to your customers.
We hope you now have a clearer understanding of this approach and how you can start your journey toward adopting it.
What is meant by Cloud Native?
Why Cloud Native?
What is an example of a Cloud Native application?
What is the difference between cloud first and Cloud Native?
What is the difference between Cloud Native and cloud-based?
What is the difference between Cloud Native and hybrid cloud?
Why is Cloud Native better?
Let's join forces on your cloud journey.
