Challenges of cloud native architecture
While there are benefits of cloud native architecture, there are a few challenges associated with it as well. We will cover them in the following sections.
Security and privacy
Even though cloud service providers provide security for your system, your application should still be implemented securely to protect data from vulnerabilities. As there are so many moving components in cloud native applications, the risk of a security breach is therefore greater. It also gets more complex as the application grows more and more. The design and modifications should always be done with security in mind. Always comply with security best practices and use security monitoring software for all releases to analyze security breaches. Use the security features of the language you use to implement services.
The complexity of the system
Cloud native is intended to develop large applications on cloud platforms. When applications get bigger and bigger, it's natural that they will get complicated as well. Cloud native applications can have a large number of components in them, unlike monolithic applications. These components need to communicate with each other, and this makes the whole system worse if it's not done correctly.
The complexity of cloud native applications is primarily due to communication between different services. The system should be built in a manner in which such network communications are well managed. Proper design and documentation make the system manageable and understandable. When developing a complex cloud native application that has a lot of business requirements, make sure to use a design pattern designed for a cloud native application such as API Gateway, a circuit breaker, CQRS, or Saga. These patterns significantly reduce the complexity of your system.
Cloud lock-in
Lock-in technology is not specific to cloud native architectures, where technology is constantly evolving. Cloud providers have ways of deploying and maintaining applications. For example, the deployment of infrastructures, messaging protocols, and transport protocols might vary from one vendor to another. Moving on to different vendors is also an issue. Therefore, while building and designing a system, ensure compliance with community-based standards rather than vendor-specific standards. When you are selecting messaging protocols and transport protocols, check the community support for them and make sure they are commonly used community-based standards.