As technology-based companies rapidly grow and evolve, applications and software can often be left in the dust due to limitations on what can or cannot be optimized. These outdated tools can be a hindrance and make the customer journey more difficult. That's why it's imperative that businesses employ solutions that are scalable and customizable while also ensuring that applications can be updated in a streamlined process to meet customer demands.
What is Cloud-Native Architecture?
Cloud-native architecture allows businesses to develop applications and software that are easy to update and maintain in nearly any dynamic environment. By employing the four cornerstones of cloud-native architecture, organizations can develop and support applications and software more efficiently.
While cloud-native and cloud-based applications share similar characteristics, there is one factor that separates them. Cloud-based applications take advantage of the cloud and can function within its infrastructure but will find limitations when interacting with some cloud features. Cloud-native applications, on the other hand, are fully optimized for the cloud and are adaptable within the cloud's dynamic environment.
C2C partner Aiven provides a platform that cloud-native organizations can use to manage their spend and host their resources with optimal efficiency at scale. According to Mike von Speyr, Aiven Director of Partner Sales, "With public spend on cloud infrastructure expected to rise over 20% this year, it is important to remove the complexity from your cloud operations if you want to be truly cloud-native - and that's where Aiven comes in. Our data platform can operate all the major open-source data tools, including those that aren't native to Google Cloud such as Apache Kafka, Apache Flink, OpenSearch, and Cassandra, all within a single control plane, with the same reliability guarantees. We also offer a 'bring your own cloud' service that allows you to have the power of the Aiven Platform directly in your own accounts and this has proven to yield reductions in TCO of over 30%."
The Four Pillars of Cloud-Native Architecture
For a cloud-native strategy to work optimally, it should include four main components. Each of these pillars plays a part in ensuring that updates and development run smoothly with little error. This increases efficiency for organizations while ensuring continuous quality.
DevOps
Software projects usually consist of development teams that make changes and updates based on user feedback and operations teams, which resist change in an attempt to keep the software running smoothly and securely. This often leads to internal friction between teams and delays in product launches.
DevOps is a process that focuses on optimizing the delivery and development of software by emphasizing communication between:
- Product management
- Software development
- Operations professionals
Communication between these teams is made easier by automating and monitoring critical processes in the development cycle, including:
- Software integration
- Testing
- Deployment
- Infrastructure changes
By implementing DevOps in software development, organizations tend to see increases in code quality, testing accuracy, and predictability. Furthermore, an emphasis on automation ensures a decrease in human error from initial development to future updates.
Microservices
Microservices are small, autonomous, and independently deployable services that run in separate processes yet still continuously communicate with each other. Microservices interact with each other over HTTP-based RESTful APIs, an architecture used for reading, storing and deleting forms of data.
Because they work separately from each other, microservices can be tailored to any given load demands and can be scaled independently. This makes it easier for organizations to optimize specific components or areas where needed without having to worry about disrupting other systems in the process.
Containers
When looking for a reliable and flexible way of moving software between different computing environments (from PCs to the Cloud, for example), containers are the best bet. Containers allow for seamlessly migrating software between different isolated environments, making it easy to move data anywhere or reproduce specific conditions throughout development processes.
Continuous Delivery
Typically, traditional software development follows the waterfall approach, which sees updates released over long periods of time. Continuous delivery streamlines this process by ensuring updates can be delivered as rapidly as needed, sometimes several times within one day.
Organizations see increases in development efficiency when using continuous delivery, as it is highly automated and allows for experimentation without the typical associated risks. Updates roll out faster, and human error is less of a concern.
Dig deeper into cloud-native infrastructure by visiting our online community, or contact us today to learn about becoming a C2C partner!
