Throughout my career as a developer, I’ve experienced both technical and bureaucratic hurdles that have hampered my productivity and, over time, dented my morale. A classic example might be the painstaking wait of weeks for a new virtual machine to be approved or provisioned, or simply awaiting permission grants.
Several years ago, when I began using the public cloud for my personal projects, I was astounded by the difference. It felt akin to running unimpeded rather than wading through muck. As cloud platforms have matured in recent years, this experience has only gotten better.
Marie Kondo, well-known for advocating order, also underscores the importance of joy. For developers, joy is not a mere pipe dream; it can be realized within a friction-free environment that enables developers to work in a state of flow. With a cloud native platform that puts the developer experience at the forefront, you too can relish this experience.
Equipped with the support of a laboratory, a factory, a citadel, and an observatory, an individual sitting in a coffee shop with merely a laptop and an internet connection has the power to design and deploy an application that can scale to millions of users, just like the most sprawling multinational organization. Adding to the thrill, numerous cloud giants are locked in competition to make this task even easier for you.
As a digital native individual, you’re not tethered to a data center or traditional applications. You can commence developing in a cloud native style right away. As you relish the perks of being a digital native, you can either continue on this path or lend your expertise to an organization that seeks to adopt a cloud native development style. Either way, your skills will be highly sought after and valuable.
I recall a conference speaker’s words from the late 2000s, as smartphones began to dominate the market. They described mobile phone manufacturers and network operators as engaged in a war, with mobile app developers serving as the ammunition. Today, as organizations strive to exploit the cloud’s full potential, cloud native developers have become the new ammunition.
This book consolidates my learnings over the years to help you experience the same joy—a term I use with utmost sincerity—that I have derived as a cloud native developer. It aims to offer you an accessible and low-cost route to experiencing the productivity of cloud native development as an individual, by crafting a developer experience (DX) that truly works for you.
Additionally, it offers enough insight into enterprise concerns to successfully introduce cloud native development into a scaled environment. Achieving the same level of productivity at work as in your personal projects can help you experience this joy at the workplace as well.
Summary
Cloud native represents an architectural approach and development methodology that fully exploits the potential of the cloud. It’s characterized by specific techniques, tools, and technologies designed to enhance the strengths and mitigate the weaknesses inherent in cloud computing. Importantly, the scope of cloud native isn’t confined to Google Cloud or even the public cloud. It encompasses a broad spectrum of methodologies applicable wherever cloudlike abstractions are present.
To thrive in the cloud native ecosystem, developers need to harness the potential of four distinct yet interdependent facilities: a laboratory for innovative exploration, a factory for streamlined production automation, a citadel for robust defense of live applications, and an observatory for comprehensive system oversight.
The remainder of this book will guide you through these cloud native methodologies, demonstrating how to create and optimize a laboratory, factory, citadel, and observatory using Google Cloud. The aim is to equip you with the knowledge and strategies that maximize your chances of achieving cloud native success. Before you embark on this journey, let’s first examine why Google Cloud, among others, offers a particularly conducive environment for cloud native development.