A recent buzz in migration to the cloud is "Cloud Native" and "DevOps".

So what exactly does this mean? 

Let's start with Cloud Native (CN).

The idea of CN is not new. Since the early days of internet through to the evolution leading to today, almost every legacy software company has been on a journey to convert their client/server applications to a format that works better on the web. The challenges associated with the task should not be underestimated. This transformation was not only technical, but rather a complete rehash of a whole business model. Most managed to make the journey, but it was at a cost. As ISV's moved forward to the next generation application, developed specifically for online deployment, most were using old development techniques to deploy into this new thing called the world wide web. Having moved the application development to deploy straight onto the web, competition became fierce. Not only were your offerings available in an easy access format, so were your competitors. Speed to launch now has become critical to stay ahead of the competition. 

Pushing the boundaries of software development laid out a path to the birth of a new type of ISV. The ISV who now makes software tools to help speed up software development and rapid deployment. This new age of ISVs also lowered the barrier to entry for small groups of talented people to create new ideas into software solutions and launch their wares into low cost public cloud infrastructures. Cloud Native has enabled us to look at and categorize such tools to develop software native for cloud deployments. Nothing new in the idea, but a whole lot more sophisticated and agile compared to the early days of migrating applications to the world wide web. Also having this software category called cloud native helps this new age of ISV's to have an identity and place in society. We now know where to go.

Next! What is DevOps and Who is it? 

DevOps is a software development methodology which allows agility and speed of deployment. To achieve the best in class agility and rapid deployment, you do need the tools that come as part of the Cloud Native framework. The new age ISV's we talked about early who are making the tools for ISV development, are the tools that are needed. Or at least if you want your software to keep up with customer demand and fight your competitors at the same time. Staying relevant has never been so important as it is today. There is little to no time to think and plan for the next version of your software. So who is DevOps. As a software developer you can't be on this journey by yourself. Your software alone cannot keep you relevant. 

You can't just be passenger!

What do I mean? Let's consider the following.

If you want to travel faster in a car you can sit in the car and press the accelerator more and deliver more fuel to the engine. Of course the car will go faster. However once you reach maximum speed, you may find someone with a faster car overtaking you and getting ahead. The only thing you can do is find a way to speed up your car. For this you need to find a person who can modify, develop and tune your car. Well, in most cases that person is not you.

Of course you need to find the person who knows how your car is built and ask them to make the changes needed to make it go faster and keep up.

When getting into a DevOps and Cloud Native strategy to stay agile and relevant, you need to go to those people who build and run the infrastructure your software runs on, and ask them to work with you. It is in the infrastructure cloud native tools reside, not in your application. These are the DevOps people who run cloud native tools, and they are a new emerging generation of software developers in the cloud infrastructure. As an ISV or a software developer you can no longer be elitist and isolate yourself from the person who looks after hosting your applications. These are the people who will modify your car.