Characteristics

Automated Processes

In cloud native architecture, automation is crucial at every stage, from development to deployment. Tools like CI/CD pipelines, integrated with version control systems like Git, enable automated building, testing, and deploying of applications and infrastructure. This automation facilitates rapid, frequent, and incremental updates with minimal human intervention, enhancing disaster recovery capabilities.

Self-Healing Systems

Cloud native systems expect occasional failures and are designed for resilience. They incorporate health checks for continuous monitoring and automatic restarts of applications. The compartmentalized nature of these systems means that a failure in one area doesn't necessarily impact the entire application.

Scalability

Cloud native applications are designed to handle increasing loads while maintaining a high-quality user experience. This involves deploying multiple instances of the application and distributing the workload among them. Scalability is often automated based on metrics like CPU usage or memory demand.

Cost Efficiency

Cloud native architectures can scale down during periods of low traffic, leveraging cloud providers' usage-based pricing models to reduce costs. Orchestration systems like Kubernetes optimize infrastructure usage by efficiently allocating application placement.

Maintenance Ease

Microservices break down applications into smaller, more manageable pieces, making them more portable, easier to test, and easier to manage across different teams.

Inherent Security

In cloud environments, where resources are often shared, security models differ from traditional approaches. Zero trust computing, for instance, requires authentication for every user and process, countering the risks associated with traditional security zones.

Practical Application

A practical starting point in cloud native architecture is the twelve-factor(https://12factor.net/) app methodology. It guides the development of cloud native applications, covering aspects from codebase version control and environment-sensitive configuration to more complex concepts like statelessness and concurrency. These practices are beneficial not only in cloud environments but also in on-premises systems and facilitate a smoother transition to cloud infrastructure.