A minimalistic and focused guide with common use cases, patterns, principles and practises for developing Cloud Native applications on Kubernetes.

“Cloud native” is a term used to describe applications designed specifically to run on a cloud-
based infrastructure. Typically, cloud-native applications are developed as loosely coupled
microservices running in containers managed by platforms. These applications anticipate
failure, and they run and scale reliably even when their underlying infrastructure is experiencing outages.
To offer such capabilities, cloud-native platforms impose a set of contracts and
constraints on the applications running on them. These contracts ensure that the applications
conform to certain constraints and allow the platforms to automate the management of the
containerized applications. Many organizations understand the necessity and importance of
becoming cloud native, but do not know where to start. Ensuring that cloud-native platforms
and the containerized applications that run on them work seamlessly together provides the
ability to anticipate failure and the reliability to run and scale even when the underlying
infrastructure experiences outages. This whitepaper describes a number of principles that
containerized applications must comply with in order to become good cloud-native citizens.

Adhering to these principles will help ensure that your applications are suitable for
automation in cloud-native platforms such as Kubernetes.