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If an app is “cloud-native,” it’s designed to take advantage of a distributed systems environment. Unlike in a traditional datacenter, applications in distributed systems use resources from groups of networked servers called clusters. Organizations adopt distributed systems environments to increase the scalability and fault tolerance of their apps, but to exploit these benefits, a new form of application development is needed.

Cloud-native development does just that—it’s an approach to building apps that is optimized for a distributed systems environment. It helps companies scale through improved infrastructure efficiency, greater resiliency, faster service delivery, and increased code reuse.

Start with the people and processes in your organization. That means adopting DevOps practices to bring your development and operations teams together with shared purpose and regular feedback. In a DevOps approach, apps are easier to release as a collection of loosely coupled pieces, like microservices, instead of waiting for one large release. Building microservice-based apps allows for shorter development cycles, but your architecture can get complex when each piece is in a different development stage. To manage this complexity, well-modeled and governed application programming interfaces (APIs) can connect microservices so they aren’t impeded by development processes. As your architecture grows, deploying services in containers can help you scale rapidly and avoid downtime.

Building cloud-native apps means changing how your teams collaborate with each other, and adding tools and processes to support them. Those changes don’t just make it easier to build apps for a distributed systems environment—they give teams what they need to make your business run faster.

We think if you want a successful cloud-native development strategy—one that’s ready for fast-moving, disruptive markets—you have to fundamentally change how your people, processes, and technology work together.

Red Hat is built on an open culture, so we understand how to help businesses transform. Red Hat^® Open Innovation Labs give your teams hands-on experience with DevOps, agile workflows, and innovative open source technologies.

We also contribute code and improvements back to the upstream communities for all our cloud-native technologies, sharing advancements along the way. Of course, collaborating with a community is about more than developing code. Collaboration is the freedom to ask questions and offer improvements. That’s the open source way and the power of the open organization. It’s why Red Hat has been a trusted provider of enterprise infrastructure for over 20 years.