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Cloud-native Computing

A detailed guide to cloud-native computing — the architectural approach for building and running scalable, resilient applications using containers, microservices, declarative APIs, and managed cloud infrastructure.

What Is Cloud-native Computing?

Cloud-native computing is an approach to building and running applications that fully exploits the advantages of the cloud computing delivery model. Cloud-native applications are designed as a collection of small, independent, and loosely coupled services (microservices) that run in containers, are orchestrated by platforms like Kubernetes, communicate through APIs and event-driven patterns, and are deployed using automated DevOps pipelines. The result is software that can scale elastically, recover automatically from failures, and be updated frequently with minimal downtime. The topics below cover the core building blocks, patterns, and tooling that make up the cloud-native ecosystem.

Core Topics in Cloud-native Computing

  1. Cloud-native Computing Resources A collection of guides, articles, and reference material for learning and adopting cloud-native principles and practices.
  2. The Kubernetes Platform The de facto container orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
  3. Microservices Architecture (MSA) An architectural style that structures an application as a collection of small, independently deployable services organized around business capabilities.
  4. Event-driven Architecture (EDA) A design paradigm in which services communicate by producing and consuming events asynchronously, enabling loose coupling and real-time responsiveness.
  5. Containerization Packaging applications and their dependencies into lightweight, portable containers that run consistently across environments.
  6. Service Meshes A dedicated infrastructure layer that manages service-to-service communication, providing traffic control, security, and observability without changing application code.
  7. API Gateways A single entry point that manages, routes, secures, and monitors API traffic between clients and backend microservices.
  8. Cloud-native Functions Lightweight, event-triggered functions designed to run in cloud-native and serverless environments, often used for network and telecom workloads.
  9. DevOps for IT Agility Practices and tooling that unify software development and IT operations to enable continuous integration, continuous delivery, and faster release cycles.
  10. Serverless Computing A cloud execution model where the provider dynamically manages infrastructure, allowing developers to run code without provisioning or managing servers.
  11. Cloud-native Edge Computing Extending cloud-native principles — containers, orchestration, and microservices — to edge locations closer to data sources and end users for lower latency.
  12. Monitoring & Observability Solutions Tools and practices for collecting metrics, logs, and traces to understand system health, diagnose issues, and ensure reliability.
  13. Cloud-native Data Protection Solutions Backup, disaster recovery, and data resilience solutions purpose-built for containerized applications and Kubernetes environments.
  14. Cloud-native Storage Solutions Persistent, scalable storage systems designed to integrate with container orchestration platforms and support stateful cloud-native workloads.