“‘Cloud native’ is more than ‘cloud only,’” I wrote in my December 2017 article Seven Remarkable Takeaways From Massive Kubernetes Conference. “It means bringing cloud-centric best practices to software and IT generally, whether that be in the cloud or on premises.”
Why is this maturing definition of cloud native so important? “The big win for enterprises: Kubernetes provides cloud-native approaches to modernizing legacy assets.”
Fair enough, but the devil, of course, is in the details – and details there are here, in spades. One cannot simply install Kubernetes and hope to modernize older, legacy IT assets automatically – or even in a straightforward fashion.
The reality: there are many moving parts to cloud native architecture. And just as service-oriented architecture built upon n-tier architecture, and virtualization-based cloud architecture did the same in turn, so too will cloud native architecture leverage the approaches that came before, while breaking new ground.
There’s no arguing with the fact, however, that such rearchitecting is hard. And you have to get the details right.
Containers and State: How do We Keep Track of Things?
The first thing you have to understand about containers is that they are inherently ephemeral. Like old postcards from people you can’t remember and ticket stubs from games long since played, ephemera are objects that no one ever intended to keep around for very long.
Just so with containers.
As a result, we typically think of containers as stateless: send them some information, let them do their thing and send the results on, without keeping track of anything. After all, a container may pop up or disappear at any time, so it probably wouldn’t make sense to store anything important in one of them.
Read the entire article at https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2019/01/27/think-youre-cloud-native-only-if-youre-doing-this/.
Intellyx publishes the biweekly Cortex newsletter, advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives, and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. As of the time of writing, NetApp, Pivot3, and ROBIN are Intellyx customers. None of the other organizations mentioned in this article are Intellyx customers. Image credit: Dave O.
