Introduction

Cloud-native apps are software applications that are designed, built, and deployed to run on cloud computing platforms. Cloud-native apps take advantage of the cloud’s features and services, such as scalability, elasticity, automation, and security. Cloud-native apps are often composed of multiple small, independent, and loosely coupled services, called microservices, that communicate with each other through APIs.

Cloud-native apps are becoming increasingly popular among businesses and developers, as they offer many benefits over traditional on-premises applications. Cloud-native apps can help businesses accelerate their innovation, reduce their costs, improve their reliability, and enhance their security. In this article, we will explore the key advantages of cloud-native apps and how they can help businesses achieve their goals.

Advantages of Cloud-Native Apps

Agility and scalability

One of the main advantages of cloud-native apps is that they are designed to be agile and scalable. This means that cloud-native apps can be easily deployed and managed in a cloud environment, without requiring complex configuration or installation processes. Cloud-native apps can also be updated and modified quickly and frequently, as they use continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines that automate the testing and deployment of new code.

Moreover, cloud-native apps can scale up or down as needed, depending on the demand and workload. Cloud-native apps can leverage the cloud’s elasticity and automation features, such as auto-scaling groups, load balancers, and serverless functions, to adjust the amount of resources allocated to them. This can help businesses to optimize their performance and efficiency, as well as avoid overprovisioning or underutilization of resources.

Cost savings

Another advantage of cloud-native apps is that they can help businesses to save money on IT costs. This is because cloud-native apps are typically more efficient to run and manage than traditional on-premises applications. Cloud-native apps use fewer resources and consume less power than monolithic applications, as they are composed of smaller and simpler services that run in containers or serverless environments.

Additionally, cloud-native apps can help businesses reduce their capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx) costs. By using cloud-native apps, businesses do not have to invest in the procurement and maintenance of costly physical infrastructure, such as servers, storage devices, or network equipment. Instead, they can use the cloud’s pay-as-you-go model, where they only pay for the resources they use. This can help businesses to avoid upfront costs and to lower their total cost of ownership (TCO).

Increased reliability

A third advantage of cloud-native apps is that they are typically more reliable than traditional on-premises applications. This is because cloud-native apps are designed to be fault-tolerant and resilient, meaning that they can handle failures gracefully and recover quickly from them. Cloud-native apps use techniques such as health checks, circuit breakers, retries, fallbacks, and timeouts to detect and mitigate errors in their services. Cloud-native apps also use distributed tracing and logging tools to monitor and troubleshoot their performance and availability.

Furthermore, cloud-native apps are often deployed across multiple cloud zones and regions, which can help to protect them from outages in any one location. Cloud-native apps can use the cloud’s high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) features, such as replication, backup, restore, failover, etc., to ensure that their data and services are always accessible and consistent. This can help businesses to provide a positive customer experience and to meet their service level agreements (SLAs).

Improved security

A fourth advantage of cloud-native apps is that they can help businesses to improve their security posture. This is because cloud-native apps are built with security in mind and often include features such as encryption, authentication, and authorization to protect their data and services from unauthorized access or modification. Cloud-native apps also use the principle of least privilege, which means that they grant only the minimum level of access and permissions required for each user or role to perform their tasks in the cloud.

Moreover, cloud providers offer a variety of security services that can be used to protect cloud-native apps. These include firewalls, identity and access management (IAM), key management, security groups, security audits, compliance checks, etc. These services can help businesses enforce their security policies and standards, as well as comply with relevant regulations and best practices.

Case Studies

To illustrate the advantages of cloud-native apps, here are some examples of how some companies have used them to achieve their business objectives.

How Netflix Used cloud-native Apps to Improve Agility and Scalability

Netflix is one of the world’s leading streaming platforms, with over 200 million subscribers worldwide¹. Netflix uses a cloud-native approach to deliver its content and services to its customers. Netflix uses microservices, containers, and serverless functions to build and run its applications on the AWS cloud². This enables Netflix to deploy and update its applications faster and more frequently, as well as to scale them to handle millions of concurrent requests and streams. Netflix also uses the cloud’s elasticity and automation features, such as auto-scaling groups, load balancers, and Lambda functions, to adjust its resources according to the demand and workload³.

How Airbnb used cloud-native apps to save money on IT costs

Airbnb is one of the world’s largest online marketplaces for travel and hospitality, with over 4 million hosts and 800 million guests⁴. Airbnb uses a cloud-native approach to manage its data and services on the cloud. Airbnb uses microservices, containers, and Kubernetes to run its applications on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP)⁵. This enables Airbnb to reduce its IT costs by using fewer resources and consuming less power than monolithic applications. Airbnb also uses the cloud’s pay-as-you-go model, where it only pays for the resources it uses. This helps Airbnb to avoid upfront costs and to lower its TCO.

How Spotify used cloud-native apps to increase reliability

Spotify is one of the world’s most popular music streaming platforms, with over 320 million users and 60 million songs. Spotify uses a cloud-native approach to deliver its music and services to its users. Spotify uses microservices, containers, and Kubernetes to build and run its applications on the GCP. This enables Spotify to increase its reliability by using techniques such as health checks, circuit breakers, retries, fallbacks, and timeouts to handle failures gracefully and recover quickly from them. Spotify also uses distributed tracing and logging tools to monitor and troubleshoot its performance and availability. Spotify also uses the cloud’s HA and DR features, such as replication, backup, restore, failover, etc., to ensure that its music and services are always accessible and consistent.

How Shopify used cloud-native apps to improve security

Shopify is one of the world’s leading e-commerce platforms, with over 1 million merchants and 200 million customers. Shopify uses a cloud-native approach to secure its data and services on the cloud. Shopify uses microservices, containers, and Kubernetes to run its applications on the AWS cloud. This enables Shopify to improve its security by using features such as encryption, authentication, and authorization to protect its data and services from unauthorized access or modification. Shopify also uses the principle of least privilege, which means that it grants only the minimum level of access and permissions required for each user or role to perform their tasks in the cloud.

Moreover, Shopify uses AWS security services, such as firewalls, IAM, key management, security groups, security audits, compliance checks, etc., to enforce its security policies and standards, as well as to comply with relevant regulations and best practices.

Conclusion

Cloud-native apps are software applications that are designed, built, and deployed to run on cloud computing platforms. Cloud-native apps offer many advantages over traditional on-premises applications, such as agility and scalability, cost savings, increased reliability, and improved security. Cloud-native apps can help businesses accelerate their innovation, reduce their costs, improve their reliability, and enhance their security. By using cloud-native apps, businesses can gain a competitive edge in the market and achieve their goals.