Cloud-native architecture is the design or plan for applications and services built specifically to exist in the cloud. Most resources emphasize the role of microservices in cloud-native architecture.The major advantage of cloud-native architecture over legacy systems is its flexibility.
Cloud-native architectures aren’t built on on-premise physical servers but are instead deployed on a cloud platform and leverage the cloud philosophy of distributed systems. This enables cloud-native architectures to take full advantage of the latest and best technologies around distributed systems. They are specifically designed to utilize the versatility and scalability benefits of the cloud.
The best way to understand cloud-native architecture is to take a closer look at cloud-native applications. Cloud-native apps are built on a fundamentally different approach than monolithic applications. Rather than developing and deploying the application as a whole, cloud-native apps are based on microservices that are self-contained and independently deployable.
Microservices are the core of cloud-native application architecture. They are essentially small, self-sufficient mini-programs, each with their own data store and application logic, built to execute a single business function. Cloud-native architecture will consist of many small pieces that work together. You can change, add, or replace one without potentially breaking the entire system.
Cloud-native architecture typical components include:
- Containers
- Immutable infrastructure
- Microservices
- Service meshes
These pieces work together, but you can tinker with them independently without taking down the entire system. Your final build is scalable, resilient, and available to all consumers.
Traditional vs Cloud Computing Environments:
In a traditional computing environment, a company needs to provision capacity based of their best guess of a maximum peak traffic (for instance - Black Friday). Which means that for extended periods of time, a vast majority of your capacity is essentially wasted.
This is more or less why Cloud Computing was born - you get to use other's extra capacity for your own purposes. Servers, databases, storage etc. can be started and shut down within hours or even minutes based on the requirements.
5 Principles of cloud-native Architecture:
Principle 1: Design for automation
1. Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery
Principle 2: Be smart with state
1. Stateless components(containers) - Stateless means that any state (persistent data of any kind) is stored outside of a container
Principle 3: Favor managed services
Principle 4: Practice defense in depth - Adopt an approach of defense-in-depth by applying authentication between each component, and by minimizing the trust between those components (even if they are 'internal'). As a result, there is no 'inside' and 'outside'.
Principle 5: Always be architecting - Always seek to refine, simplify and improve the architecture of the system, as the needs of the organization change, the landscape of your IT systems change, and the capabilities of your cloud provider itself change.
