What is Cloud-Native?
2026-10-27
The rapid and widespread growth of cloud services, which began in the 2010s and continues in various forms today, has also required traditional approaches to application design, development, and operation to be reconsidered. This led to the emergence of the cloud-native concept, in which application software is designed from the outset to account for the characteristics of cloud IT environments. One of the defining features of cloud-native architecture is the move away from rigid monolithic structures toward microservices, containers, and flexible APIs.
This approach makes it possible to take full advantage of the cloud, including seamless on-demand scaling, automated deployment, and remote management and monitoring. Cloud-native environments are therefore often built around containers and Kubernetes, while applications are divided into separate services that are packaged into containers and run in a cluster. This architecture enables organizations to handle workloads more efficiently when their intensity changes significantly over time—a pattern typical of cloud services. Cloud-native technologies are also commonly associated with declarative APIs, immutable infrastructure, service meshes, and automation.