Cloud Native Java meaning & advantages

Java has long been the language of choice for enterprise development. But, with the rise in popularity of cloud-native application frameworks like Spring Frameworks (Spring Cloud), there are new options to consider when it comes time to choose your next project’s programming language.

This article will explore what cloud-native Java is and how it differs from traditional Java development.

What is Cloud Native Java?

First and foremost, Cloud-native is a term used to describe applications and software architectures designed for the cloud environment.

These applications are distributed, scalable, and resilient by nature and can be deployed on various platforms for cloud computing.

Cloud-native Java is a relatively new term, but its concept has existed for quite some time and is pivotal for companies looking to build applications for the future.

“Cloud native is structuring teams, culture, and technology to utilize automation and architectures to manage complexity and unlock velocity.” (Joe Beda- Co-founder, Kubernetes and Principal Engineer, VMware)

Cloud-native is the approach to building and running applications by utilizing the advantages that the cloud computing model offers.

It has been successfully demonstrated that companies build and operate applications faster and respond sooner to demands by using a cloud-native architecture.

The idea is to create an approachable way to adopt more cloud-native features into your project without completely reinventing your codebase.

Cloud-native development is appropriate for public and private clouds because everything is about how applications are built and deployed and not where.

Why use Cloud Native Java?

There are several reasons you might choose to use Cloud Native Java in your next project:

• Increase Scalability - Cloud-native applications are built to take advantage of the scalability offered by the cloud. This means they can handle the increased load as traffic grows without crashing or becoming overloaded.
• Reduce Costs - With proper planning, cloud-native apps can often be deployed more cheaply than traditional applications. Additionally, many cloud providers offer discounts for high-volume usage.
• Improve Performance - Cloud-native applications can be deployed on virtual machines that can be constantly optimized and use automation, which means they can often handle more requests per second than a traditional Java application running on an in-house server.
• Faster Time to Market - Cloud-native apps can be built more quickly and require far fewer resources to maintain. This means you will spend less time waiting on provisioning or other deployment delays before your product is ready for users.
• Easier Maintenance - In addition to being easier to build in the first place, cloud-native applications are also designed with maintenance in mind. They have a modular architecture that makes it easy to add new features without breaking existing code.
• Future Proof - As the world moves towards more cloud-based solutions, the chances are good that your application will need to reactive and run in a multi-cloud environment at some point. Cloud-native applications can be written with this eventuality in mind.

Cloud-Native Java vs Traditional Java development practices?

Traditional Java applications run as containers on hardware servers that handle all of the processing power requirements of each application instance.

By contrast, cloud-native Java runs across multiple nodes hosted within virtual machines running on shared computing resources like the Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure.

There are many ways in which Cloud Native Java differs from traditional development practices, but a few of the most notable differences are:

• Building Microservices - In traditional Java development, all code is deployed as a single monolithic application. By contrast, cloud-native applications use and build microservice architecture to break up their functionality into smaller pieces that can be individually managed and scaled. These microservices communicate by using APIs. This use of distributed systems allows for more flexibility and faster deployments.
• DevOps - A big part of cloud-native development is embracing DevOps culture and tools. This includes practices like automated testing, continuous integration, and release management.
• Containerization - Containers are not a new technology but have become an essential part of cloud-native development. Containers allow you to package your application and its dependencies into a self-contained unit that can run on any platform.
• Orchestration - Orchestration is the process of managing and deploying multiple containers across a cluster of nodes. This is an essential part of creating and managing a cloud-native application.
• More modular and composable - Modularity and composability are two guiding principles behind cloud-native development. Modules can be combined to create new applications, or they can be reused in multiple different apps.
• Increased focus on monitoring and instrumentation tools - Because these systems are deployed across various nodes in virtual machines running on shared computing resources, they must have standardized ways for communicating metrics and events back to developers. This allows early detection of issues before becoming full-blown outages or security breaches.

Advantages of using Cloud Native for my business

There are several benefits that businesses can reap from using Cloud Native Java software development practices, including:

1. Reduced infrastructure costs - By moving to the cloud, companies can reduce or even eliminate the need for their own hardware servers and become serverless on-premises. This can lead to significant cost savings.
2. Scalability and elasticity - The cloud provides scalability and elasticity on-demand, so businesses only pay for what they use.
3. Portability and flexibility - As cloud-native applications are containerized, they can run on any platform. This means you don’t have to worry about your app not working with a new software release or another piece of hardware.
4. Improved efficiency and productivity - By embracing DevOps culture and practices, businesses can see a significant increase in their development teams’ overall efficiency, productivity.
5. Greater innovation - Developing cloud-native applications opens up new possibilities for innovation that would not be possible with traditional development practices. This is because cloud-native applications are much easier to break up into smaller pieces, leading to more dynamic and innovative programming.

Disadvantages of using Cloud Native Java

There are a few potential drawbacks to using cloud-native Java development practices:

1. Complexity - The increased modularity and composability of cloud-native applications can make them more challenging to understand and maintain. This is especially true for legacy applications that are being refactored to be more cloud-friendly.
2. Security - As with any new technology, there is always some risk associated with adopting cloud-native practices. In particular, developers need to be aware of the security implications of deploying their applications across multiple nodes in virtual machines on shared resources. However, in most cases, cloud-native Java development practices are more secure than traditional approaches. Teams will be required to learn through training and tutorials, about the security nature of Cloud Native Java.
3. Performance - One potential downside of using virtual machines rather than physical hardware servers is reduced performance. However, this can usually be mitigated by selecting the correct type of VM and optimizing your code to run better on the virtualized infrastructure. In addition, cloud servers provide continuous delivery of services by running 24/7, meaning the runtime of your application can last around the clock.

Improve app performance with Cloud Native Java

Cloud-Native Java applications are designed to be more scalable and high-performing than traditional Oracle Java applications.

This is partly due to the use of microservices, which break an application down into smaller, manageable pieces that can be scaled up or down as needed.

Additionally, cloud ecosystem practices emphasize monitoring and instrumentation so issues can be detected and corrected before they cause any significant downtime or performance degradation.

Operating on the cloud can increase your application’s performance and scalability because resources like CPU, memory, disk storage, etc., can be allocated as needed.

The cloud offers elasticity which means that you can quickly and easily scale your application up or down to meet changing demands.

In addition, the Cloud Native community has many open source projects that work on varying aspects of operating a cloud-based application. These ongoing projects ensure constant performance upgrades for your application.

Conclusion

Cloud-native Java development is a relatively new way of building applications that take advantage of the cloud’s benefits. These applications are more modular, composable, and monitoring/measurement-ready than their traditional counterparts.

For businesses looking to future-proof their applications, cloud-native development is a great way to go.

For more information on how your business can take advantage of cloud-native development, reach out!