Cloud native is an approach to building and running applications that fully exploits cloud computing advantages, including containers, microservices, and declarative infrastructure.
Cloud native isn't just about running on the cloud—it's about building applications that take full advantage of cloud computing models. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) defines cloud native technologies as those that empower organizations to build and run scalable applications in dynamic environments.
Running a monolithic application on an EC2 instance is cloud-hosted, not cloud native. Cloud native applications are designed from the ground up for elasticity, resilience, and automation. They scale horizontally, recover from failures automatically, and deploy independently.
Most teams adopt cloud native incrementally: containerize existing applications first, then decompose into services as needed, introduce orchestration with Kubernetes, and add service mesh and observability layers as complexity grows. The goal is to match architectural complexity with actual requirements.
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