Cloud Native is Lean & Autonomous

It is a way of thinking and architecting that enables self-sufficient, full-stack teams to deliver quickly and safely

Lean and autonomous are the two words that best describe cloud-native in a nutshell. I chose to use these two words for the name of this blog series because these two ideas drive the most important choices we make when building cloud-native systems. Throughout this series, keep in mind that cloud-native is as much a way of thinking as it is a way of architecting.

Cloud-native is lean because it enables self-sufficient, full-stack teams to deliver results faster. It empowers them to perform focused experiments in rapid succession until they arrive at an optimal solution. All along the way it helps minimize the risk of wasting effort on building the wrong thing.

But, moving fast and performing lean experiments comes with its own risks. We are all human and it is impossible to eliminate honest human error, especially when we are moving fast. Therefore, cloud-native systems must be composed of autonomous services which protect themselves from other services and vice versa.

Lean and autonomous are two sides of the same coin. We need to move quickly, but we have to do so safely. That all sounds great, but how does it work. This is where the definition of cloud-native needs to go a layer deeper. Cloud Native is also Serverless-First and Event-First. I dig into these ideas in further postings.

For more thoughts on serverless and cloud-native checkout the other posts in this series and my books: Software Architecture Patterns for Serverless Systems, Cloud Native Development Patterns and Best Practices and JavaScript Cloud Native Development Cookbook.