Cloud-native is an approach to building and running applications that leverages cloud computing technologies to maximize agility, scalability, and resilience. It emphasizes designing systems to fully utilize the capabilities of modern cloud infrastructure, such as containerization, microservices, and DevOps practices.
Key Characteristics of Cloud-Native
- Containerization: Applications are packaged in containers (e.g., Docker) for consistent deployment across environments.
- Microservices Architecture: Decomposes applications into small, independent services that can scale and update individually.
- DevOps Integration: Combines development and operations to enable continuous delivery and automation.
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Uses code to manage infrastructure, ensuring reproducibility and version control.
- Resilience & Self-Healing: Systems are designed to recover from failures automatically.
Benefits of Cloud-Native
- Scalability: Easily scale resources up or down based on demand.
- Cost Efficiency: Reduces infrastructure costs through optimized resource usage.
- Agility: Accelerates development and deployment cycles.
- High Availability: Ensures applications remain operational even during failures.
For a deeper dive into the advantages of adopting cloud-native practices, visit our Cloud Native Benefits guide.