Understanding Cloud-Native Apps: A Complete Guide
Table of contents
- What is Cloud-Native, Cloud-Based, and Cloud-Enabled: Terms Explained
- 4 Key Pillars of Cloud-Native Apps
- Cloud-Native Apps Adoption Challenges
- When Does It Make Sense to Build Cloud-Native Applications?
- Monolithic Apps Architecture vs Cloud-Native Architecture
- Cloud-Native App Development for a Global Consulting Company: an Exadel Case Study
- Cloud-Native Implementation Benefits for Mercer:
- Cloud-Native App Development: Conclusion
More than 85% of companies will have adopted a cloud-first approach by 2025 and won’t be able to fully implement their digital strategies without cloud-native architecture and technology, Gartner says.
Nowadays the cloud helps companies to organize processes more efficiently than it used to be in a traditional, monolithic environment. Netflix became a pioneer in migrating from traditional monolithic app architecture to cloud-native solutions. In 2009, Netflix was an IT video-streaming platform facing growth challenges, with their platform architecture needing to cope with growing demands from their clients. To improve speed and access at scale, the company moved from private data centers to the cloud and deployed microservices architecture. Today, Netflix uses more than 1000 microservices.
In the digital era companies should be flexible and respond quickly to market changes, stay relevant, and keep up with new technologies. Cloud-native development has all these ingredients.
Check out our cloud-native app development guide for business, discover what cloud-native applications are and when to adopt them.
What is Cloud-Native, Cloud-Based, and Cloud-Enabled: Terms Explained
There are no commonly accepted definitions of the term “cloud-native.” Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) defines “cloud-native computing” as “the use of open source software as well as technologies such as containers, microservices, and service grids to develop and deploy scalable applications on cloud computing platforms.”
To avoid any confusion with cloud terminology, we’ve included a brief explanation of three key terms below.
Cloud-native applications are developed from scratch and deployed to the cloud. Its main goal is to increase scalability and availability, provide flexibility to introduce new features, and ensure smooth business operations. This approach enables organizations to respond quickly to changing customer needs.
The “cloud-based” approach allows you to leverage cloud benefits like improved availability and scalability without fully overhauling your application to utilize cloud services. For example, you can migrate your web application to an AWS server.
“Cloud-enabled” refers to traditional monolithic applications migrated to the cloud. These applications are refactored, but the architecture remains the same. The cloud-enabled approach is the first step in cloud migration.
To summarize, simply running an application in the cloud does not mean it is cloud-native. To meet the criteria of a cloud-native application, it should match at least four fundamental pillars. Let’s deconstruct them for a better understanding of what cloud-native development is.
4 Key Pillars of Cloud-Native Apps
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Microservices Architecture
Cloud-native applications are built from many different small interdependent services, also called microservices.
Before, developers created monolithic applications. They packed all the components in one extensive application with both front end and back end on just one server. Such applications were hard to test, deploy quickly, and scale — a single code change affected the whole application.
With the cloud-native approach, developers divide the functions into smaller microservices. These microservices are like separate building blocks that loosely connect to each other through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).
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Containers and Container Orchestration
Cloud-native applications are packed in containers — lightweight components that contain everything a microservice needs to run in any environment. As the number of microservices grows, it becomes complicated to manage them properly. Here is where container orchestration tools come into play: they automate, manage, and scale containers, ensuring the microservices run smoothly.
Kubernetes and Docker are two leading products for container orchestration. They determine where containers should run, identify and fix issues, and distribute the workload across different microservices.
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DevOps
Microservices architecture of cloud-native applications requires high automation and close collaboration between development and operations teams, which is exactly what DevOps provides.
A critical element of DevOps is continuous integration and continuous delivery, known as CI/CD. CI/CD empowers teams by automating software development and deployment processes, making them faster and more reliable.
Continuous Integration (CI) involves frequently merging code changes into a common repository, accompanied by the automatic execution of tests to verify that the code works.
Continuous Delivery (CD), in turn, involves automating software deployment in a production environment, usually achieved through automated deployment pipelines.
The cloud-native approach can provide several benefits for larger and more complex applications. Among them are increased scalability, improved availability, and accelerated development cycles.
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Continuous Delivery
To meet fast-changing customer demands and business needs, the software should be updated often. While traditional monolithic application development involves long-term plans and release cycles, agile development principles embrace a culture of change and provide value to customers in short release cycles of just a few days, ideally allowing changes to be made up to several times a day.
The agile approach increases transparency and awareness of work progress, facilitating effective communication between cross-functional teams.
Cloud-Native Apps Adoption Challenges
More than 95% of digital workloads will be deployed on cloud-native platforms by 2025, Gartner predicts. Despite the advantages of cloud-native development, there are some challenges to consider when switching from traditional to cloud-native apps.
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Cloud complexity
One of the main challenges in creating cloud-native apps is handling the complex infrastructure to support all the microservices. These apps rely on cloud services like containers, Kubernetes, and serverless computing, which can be challenging to manage.
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Service discovery
One big problem is keeping track of all the moving microservices. As they shift from place to place and more of them pop up, it’s hard to know where they all are at any moment. Service discovery refers to the process of tracking and collating these microservices.
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Security issues
Cloud-native apps are more complex by nature, so they are more sensitive to cyberattacks. Plus, keeping an eye on how well they work and figuring out what’s wrong when glitches occur can be quite a challenge, especially for debugging.
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Partial failure may turn into system failure
In a monolithic app architecture, if one component breaks, the whole app crashes.
Microservices are different. If one component fails, it doesn’t affect the entire app. But if the reason for failure is not managed well, a small problem can spread and bring down the whole cloud-native app. The more services you have, the higher the chance a small issue could become a big problem, causing more downtime and less availability for users.
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Skills shortages
Creating cloud-native apps can be costly and complex, especially for smaller companies with limited budgets. Cloud-native app development also requires good teamwork between development, operations, and security teams. This can be tricky without the right tools and processes.
So, developers must handle the complexity, deal with security issues, and invest resources and expertise to make cloud-native apps work. If they can overcome these challenges, they’ll tap into the benefits of cloud tech and drive innovation and growth.
When Does It Make Sense to Build Cloud-Native Applications?
We can’t say that moving to cloud-native applications is a magic bullet in all cases. Recently, Amazon published a Prime Video case study, which showed how moving from microservices architecture to a monolith application helped the company to slash infrastructure costs by over 90%.
Choosing between monolithic and microservices architecture depends on your specific project requirements, scalability needs, and the development team’s expertise. Many modern applications opt for a hybrid approach, where microservices are used for particular components while maintaining some monolithic elements for simplicity and performance.
Monolithic applications may be suitable for smaller projects or when simplicity is essential. By comparison, cloud-native architecture is well-suited for applications requiring scalability, resilience, and efficient resource management.
Here, we provided a table comparing monolithic and cloud-native architecture.
Monolithic Apps Architecture vs Cloud-Native Architecture
The decision to adopt a cloud-native approach should align with your organization’s specific goals, resources, and long-term strategy.
Cloud-Native App Development for a Global Consulting Company: an Exadel Case Study
Mercer, the largest provider of HR business services, sought to launch a leading compensation data collection, processing, and analysis service. The client realized that traditional application development and deployment models were hindering its growth and adaptability.
Mercer partnered with Exadel, working closely with business representatives, to define product value and to develop a roadmap, architecture, and a comprehensive delivery approach.
Key Initiatives of Cloud-Native App Development:
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Agile & DevOps Integration:
Exadel introduced Agile methodologies and DevOps processes. This integration streamlined Mercer’s application development and deployment cycle, ensuring timely releases and quick feedback loops. The result? Faster time-to-market and an application development process tuned to their evolving business needs.
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Fast-Start Kit for Cloud Application Development:
To kick-start the cloud-native app development journey, Exadel developed a ‘fast-start’ kit. Comprising reusable code libraries and templates, this kit allowed Mercer’s development teams to bypass routine setups. Instead, they could directly dive into crafting new business logic, promoting innovation, and reducing time-to-production.
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API, Integration, and Testing:
Adopting a cloud-native approach is not just about deployment, but ensuring seamless integration and robustness. Exadel utilized its proprietary KeywordFlow framework to set up API, integration, and screenshot testing. This comprehensive testing suite accelerated script development and ensured that the applications were not only agile, but also reliable and resilient
Cloud-Native Implementation Benefits for Mercer:
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Increased Application Scalability:
the ability to scale on-demand allowed Mercer to handle 30% more concurrent users without any degradation in performance.
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Cost Savings:
by leveraging reusable code libraries and optimized cloud resources, Mercer reduced its development costs by 25%.
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Improved System Performance:
application response times improved by 20%, leading to a smoother and more efficient user experience.
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Enhanced Data Security and Compliance:
security incidents related to application vulnerabilities dropped by 50% due to the integration of cloud-native security practices.
For business leaders considering a similar transformation, Mercer’s journey offers invaluable insights. Embracing a cloud-native approach, when paired with the right partner, can catapult a business into its next growth phase, ensuring adaptability, efficiency, and consistent value delivery.
Cloud-Native App Development: Conclusion
As we mentioned in the beginning of the article, the majority of companies will have embraced cloud-native app development by 2025. In the past, organizations ran into trouble when aligning their application development efforts with business goals. This is where the cloud could bring the most value.
Cloud-native application development is a transformational approach that helps to improve scalability, resiliency, and flexibility. With microservices architecture, containerization and orchestration tools, developers create applications that are easy to deploy and adapt to changing business needs.
However, moving to the cloud on your own is not easy, especially in the face of a shortage of qualified staff. Let’s say your business is just exploring the concept of cloud-native or has already started down this path. In this case, you’ll achieve your business results faster if you work with an experienced partner who understands innovation and collaboration.
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