Choosing the right platform is critical to the long-term success
of a cloud-native implementation. Take time to understand your
options and make the decision that is right for you.
If you have embraced the concept of cloud-native computing, your organiza-
tion is set up for success in today’s competitive IT environment. You have
already made significant progress. You have signed on to the basic tenets of
modern IT management practices like DevOps, continuous delivery, microser-
vices and containers. You have set a goal to create applications that are pur-
pose-built for the cloud model. And you are buying into Cloud Native Comput-
ing Foundation (CNCF) core principles and values – isolating container-packaged
applications, steering clear of vendor lock-in, providing unlimited scalability,
optimizing resource utilization and stressing resiliency.
Now what? The next step on your journey is to choose a platform – or plat-
forms – to host your cloud-native applications. The platform itself needs to
dovetail with all the concepts listed above, departing from traditional enter-
prise application design and enabling a new agile approach.
What platforms are out there that would accomplish these goals? What are the
pros and cons of each? Can platforms be used together? What platforms should
be used when–and why? These are all good questions, and all are important to
the future of your cloud implementation.
Weighing Your Options
It is commonly agreed that there are three development and deployment plat-
form models you can follow to achieve a cloud-native approach. Each has its
own benefits and drawbacks. They are all built on container technology, but
containerization is not a requirement. They are: Platform as a Service (PaaS),
Container Orchestration (or Containers as a Service, CaaS) and Serverless (or
Functions as a Service, FaaS). Let us look at them, one by one.
PaaS — Although some experts still list PaaS as an option for cloud-native
platforms, we would argue that it is not. PaaS was seen as a popular, useful
development platform when it burst onto the scene in the mid- to late first
decade of this century. But in recent years the PaaS approach has been super-
seded, to the point where many in the industry are declaring it dead. Building
on a PaaS tends to lock developers into one environment, and workloads can-
not be shared across platforms. This runs counter to the CNCF’s core principle
of frictionless sharing.
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