What is Cloud Native? A Comprehensive Guide

Cloud native embraces speed and agility. It promises to deliver new features quickly while keeping high availability. This will help respond to changing customer demands.

But, before getting into the promises of cloud native, let's look at the meaning of its close cousin: cloud computing.

And what is cloud computing? 

In its basic form, cloud computing runs apps on cloud providers' managed resources. It avoids the need to buy and manage the hardware. With cloud services, organisations can use the cloud by building and deploying time more effectively than ever. 

Why is Cloud Native important?  

This approach goes beyond traditional cloud infrastructure. It’s a set of practices and technologies - all to get the most out of the cloud. These apps give you the speed and agility to thrive in today’s world.

What was there before Cloud Native? 

The way of building applications is not as it used to be any more. In its early days, applications were created and deployed expensively. We built applications on our own servers - a monolithic design architecture. While building this dedicated hardware infrastructure, it was always hard to scale up.  

All application parts were tightly integrated, leading to scaling issues, and downtime during updates.

Let’s be fair: This was not a great user experience.

Consequently, long development cycles occurred frequently, costs rose and flexibility was limited. This drove developers to seek new, innovative ways to build and manage applications at scale.

Cloud Native Applications vs Traditional Monolithic Applications: An Example 

For this example, let's take an e-commerce store's home page within a traditional, monolithic structure. 

1. 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.

1. 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:

1. Search Service - Handles search queries.
2. Shopping Cart Service - Manages cart interactions.
3. Recommendation Service - Shows product recommendations.
4. Best Sellers Service - Shows today's bestsellers.

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 as they use automation and dynamic scaling to manage resources and deploy services quickly. This makes their applications highly scalable.

The pillars for Cloud Native 

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.  

1. Microservices 

Microservices are a vital component of Cloud Native architecture that lets 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 entirely independent. 

Microservices are loose and communicate with each other through well-defined APIs.  

Teams can own their services and 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. 

2. Containers and container orchestration  

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.  

You can move code from machine to machine with containers without worrying about possible errors 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 allows 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 many 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. 

3. DevOps 

Development processes are crucial 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 time by operations teams or automated processes. 

This requires close collaboration between development and operations teams. Automation is also needed 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 automatically create, test, and prepare code changes. This improves the velocity and efficiency of software delivery.  

4. Cloud Native open standards 

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. 

The benefits of Cloud Native 

Why does Cloud Native matter? It can help you achieve greater efficiency and scalability in your public cloud usage.  

1. Efficiency: you can use cloud resources more effectively, reducing costs.
2. Scalability: you can handle more traffic and demand, increasing performance and availability. 

Cloud Native can improve your reliability, security, and operations. However, you can only achieve this using 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 to maintain 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. Read more about Cloud Native security.

✅ Faster Development 
Agile development practices and continuous integration/deployment (CI/CD) will give you a quicker time-to-market. 

✅ Improved collaboration 
Cloud Native technologies enhance team collaboration through DevOps practices, leading to efficient workflows and faster issue resolution. 

On-premises Infrastructure vs Cloud Native 

On-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. 

Cloud Native challenges

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

Why should your business transition to Cloud Native? 

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.

Shifting towards Cloud Native 

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:

• What cloud assets do we have?
• What potential issues might arise?
• Who is responsible for each part of our cloud environment?

You’ll need an answer to these questions during the transition from traditional on-premises architectures to a true Cloud Native approach.

When and who should go Cloud Native? 

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: 

1. The application's requirements

2. 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.   

How to build Cloud Native applications 

1. First, design your application to handle changes in demand easily, meaning it should be able to scale up or down.
   Effective app configuration management is key to optimising cloud services like managed databases and storage, which reduces the need for managing complex infrastructure
2. Make sure your application components can work independently, so if one part fails, the rest can continue running.  
3. Automate testing and deployment to quickly and reliably release updates. 
4. Finally, monitor your application to catch and fix issues early.

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. 

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.

Closing thoughts 

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.