The global cloud-native applications market is projected to reach USD 17 billion by 2028. Why is this approach to computing becoming so popular? Find out what makes cloud-native users feel like they’re on cloud nine.
Find out all about cloud-native development and its main benefits.
What Is Cloud-Native?
Cloud-native is a software approach to building and running applications that focuses on fully utilizing the advantages offered by cloud computing. They are designed to be resilient, scalable, and ready for rapid evolution. That’s why they allow organizations to stay up-to-date on all the market trends, improve their operational efficiency, and deliver new features to users much more quickly.
What Are the Benefits of the Cloud-Native Approach?
According to a 2022 study, 30% of companies worldwide are using cloud-native techniques for development, and 37% intend to go cloud-native within the next three years. Those impressive numbers beg the question – why? What’s so enticing about cloud-native solutions from the business perspective?
Here are its main advantages:
Faster development and deployment
With microservices and CI/CD pipelines, cloud-native applications enable rapid development, testing, and deployment. This accelerates the release of new features and updates, giving businesses a competitive edge.
Cost efficiency
Cloud-native architectures enable pay-as-you-go models, allowing businesses to pay only for the resources they use. This reduces infrastructure costs and eliminates the need for large upfront capital expenditures.
Higher scalability
Cloud-native applications can automatically scale resources up or down based on demand. This flexibility allows businesses to efficiently handle varying workloads without over-provisioning resources, optimizing cost and performance.
Enhanced resilience
Designed to be failure-tolerant, with built-in redundancy and automatic recovery from failures, cloud-native apps are famous for their reliability. That’s why they provide companies with high availability and minimized risk of downtime, helping save money and protect their reputation.
Portability
Last but not least, cloud-native applications are often containerized, making them portable across different cloud environments or even on-premises infrastructure. This flexibility allows businesses to avoid vendor lock-in and choose the best environment for their needs.
Cloud-Native vs Cloud-Hosted
In the era of cloud, where cloud-focused solutions are more prevalent than ever (over 90% of companies are using at least one public cloud), it may be hard to understand how they actually differ from one another. To make it a little simpler, we’ve wanted to combine a short rundown of the most important differences between cloud-native and cloud-hosted apps.
Cloud-Native
- Design: Cloud-native applications are specifically designed to take full advantage of cloud computing environments. They are built using modern architectures like microservices, and they typically run in containers orchestrated by platforms like Kubernetes.
- Optimization: These applications are optimized for scalability, resilience, and rapid deployment. They’re often utilizing cloud-native technologies like serverless computing, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure as code.
- Portability: Cloud-native applications are often more portable across different cloud providers because they are designed with cloud-agnostic tools and practices.
Cloud-Hosted
- Design: Cloud-hosted applications are typically traditional or legacy applications that have been moved to the cloud without significant changes to their architecture, which means they weren’t created there, aka aren’t “native.”
- Optimization: While they benefit from being in the cloud, such as improved accessibility and potentially lower costs, they may not be fully optimized for cloud environments. They may still rely on older architectures and might not take full advantage of cloud-native features like auto-scaling or microservices.
- Portability: Cloud-hosted applications may be more dependent on specific cloud infrastructure, which puts users at risk of becoming dependent on a particular cloud provider.
How to Build Cloud-Native Applications
To develop a cloud-native app, you need three basic building blocks:
- Containers – used to package your application into lightweight, portable units
- Microservices – used to break down the app into smaller, independently deployable components
- Orchestrators – used to manage the containers and, subsequently, make sure your resources are being implemented efficiently
Having them in place, you can move towards a more DevOps-based approach, which will allow you to automate and streamline development and deployment processes.
Examples of Using Cloud-Native
The cloud-native approach works best in industries where many services are being deployed on a regular basis. It can also prove invaluable for businesses that have to react very quickly to ever-changing market conditions. That’s why cloud-native apps are used by companies such as Netflix, Uber, Amazon, and Stripe. It’s all about the flexibility and continuous delivery that’s essential to keeping them afloat – and ahead of the competition.
Summary
Cloud-native development offers unmatched flexibility, scalability, and speed, making it an essential approach for staying relevant in today’s market. As more companies adopt cloud-native strategies, those that leverage their full potential will be better positioned to innovate and adapt to evolving customer needs.
