Cloud-native development has matured significantly over the past few years. What was once a set of emerging practices has become the standard approach for building modern applications.
The defining characteristic of cloud-native development is embracing the distributed nature of cloud infrastructure. Rather than fighting against the constraints of distributed systems, cloud-native applications are designed to leverage them.
Containerization has become ubiquitous, but the real value lies in the orchestration layer. Kubernetes has emerged as the de facto standard, providing a consistent abstraction across cloud providers.
Serverless computing continues to evolve, offering compelling economics for certain workloads. The key is understanding when serverless makes sense and when traditional compute is more appropriate.
Observability has become non-negotiable. In distributed systems, the ability to understand what's happening across services is essential. Invest in comprehensive logging, metrics, and tracing from the start.
The cloud-native ecosystem is vast and evolving rapidly. Focus on fundamentals, stay curious about new developments, and always evaluate tools based on your specific requirements rather than hype.