Understanding Cloud- Native

Adding a new dimension to the ever-changing IT landscape, cloud native is emerging as the de-facto standard for developing and deploying complex, scalable systems. It is a lot more than just running your software in private/public cloud.

So, what is Cloud Native?

First up, Priyanka Sharma, general manager at Cloud Native Computing Foundation  says

“Cloud-native technology is when engineers and software people utilize cloud computing to build tech that’s faster and more resilient, and they do that to meet customer demand really quickly.” —Priyanka Sharma, Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

To us, cloud-native is all about leveraging the numerous benefits provided by the cloud computing delivery model such as elastic scaling, rapid iteration, repeatable automation and orchestration, immutable deployments. Use every tool to focus on what matters the most- building software that our customers love to use!

Understanding the Cloud Native Architecture

• In contrast to traditional monolithic applications, the cloud native model utilizes microservice architecture.

• Applications are built using independent and loosely coupled microservices.

• The microservices are then run in highly portable containers.

• Tools like Kubernetes or Docker Swarm are used to manage or orchestrate the containers so that they make sense as an application

• Using agile DevOps processes and continuous delivery workflows, the applications are managed on elastic infrastructure

Why Is Cloud-Native Architecture Important?

• With cloud-native, you are no longer constrained by infrastructure. Servers, databases, and operating systems the entire infrastructure can be scaled up and down in a matter of seconds by running quick scripts. This enables you to focus on products, customer experience and create business value.

• Use of microservices in application architecture allows developers to make changes or add new functionality without affecting the entire application and its availability.

• Based on demands, resources can be automatically scheduled and allocated using a container orchestrator.

• Container orchestration platform like Kubernetes enables easy identification of containers with a bug without disrupting the function of the entire app.

• Use of microservices strengthens continuous integration and continuous delivery.

Deliver Better Products Faster

Built by cross-functional DevOps team, each microservice runs in a separate container and goes through an independent life cycle. Utilizing an agile DevOps process, multiple CI/CD pipelines work in tandem to develop and deploy the app. This helps businesses meet changing customer expectations and deliver application improvements on the fly. 

Fast Implementation & Roll-Out of New Features

Consider an e-commerce application wherein the offers/promotions section needs to be frequently changed. As each microservice operates separately and can be updated independently in a cloud-native app. The microservice providing functionality associated with offers/ promotions can be frequently changed without affecting the app performance and end-user experience.

Automated deployment of software changes and new features is achieved utilizing the continuous integration and continuous deployment pipeline (CICD). This eliminates release schedules and manual approvals as a validated change is automatically released to the users.

Reliable and Resilient Applications

Loosely coupled microservices architecture and use of Kubernetes make cloud-native applications fault tolerant with rare shutdowns. The design ensures failures are isolated and it doesn’t take down the entire application.

Superior Customer Experience

End-users today expect continuous app improvements with small and rapid releases. The cloud native architecture enables rapid innovation as developers can now roll out features to users at a much faster pace. Moreover, services in cloud native applications are developed using the languages, runtimes and framework best suited for the functionality. This fine-grained approach enables developers to improve their customer experience significantly.

Reduced cost

Packaged as lightweight containers, cloud native apps are easy to manage and secure. Kubernetes an open source platform is now widely used to deploy and manage these containerized applications across cloud environments. Standardization of infrastructure along with open source model results in significant cost cutting.

Challenge

It was after experiencing exceptional growth in 2012 that the technical team decided to scale their existing infrastructure. This was needed to support growing rideshares and future needs.

Solution

While looking for scalable infrastructure solutions, the team had a few requirements. They didn’t want to shift to cloud virtualization or use a private cloud on their servers. This led the team to become early adopters of Containerization. Eventually, the company also started using Kubernetes orchestration. After experimenting with Docker the team chose rkt as the runtime for their containers.

Key Business Impact

Cloud-native not only brought numerous benefits to the organization but also became a force for creating business value.

• The time taken to create new services reduced from days to hours

• Developers no longer have to worry about infrastructure and can completely focus on developing code

• Significant reduction in testing and deployment time

• Use of Kubernetes made the infrastructure more resilient. Better availability helped reduced the downtime significantly.

• Due to fewer infrastructure constraints, the team can plan capacity better at their data centers

• Ultimately the cloud-native adoption enabled their 40million users to easily share rides and costs.

There has never been a better time to take full advantage of the cloud platform.

Think Cloud-Native. Get Cloud-Ready