Cloud-Native vs Cloud-Agnostic — Which Is Best For Your Business?
With the ever-changing digital world, each one of us is witnessing an uptake of cloud technology. And, depending on the size of the organization it is very much important to choose the right platform and architecture that would drive growth.
As you start interacting with the cloud providers you will definitely encounter a question around — Whether to go with Cloud Native or Cloud Agnostic architecture to build applications? Before making any decisions, you just simply need to understand both the options in depth.
While there has been an ongoing debate about the relevance of cloud-agnostic vs cloud-native for business, this blog would help you understand the specifics of each.
Let’s get in to answer what are the core characteristics of Cloud-Native and Cloud-Agnostic, what sets them apart.
Cloud-Native Development
What Is Cloud-Native?
As the name suggests it helps to build and run applications by taking advantage of services and components that are tied to the Cloud Service Provider itself. Some of the best examples are:- Using CloudWatch for monitoring services with AWS, Azure Monitoring services for Azure, and more.
Cloud-Native development can work with both public and private clouds. And, it offers the development team access to advanced computing power along with application services and modern data.
Further, this helps in integrating DevOps and other cloud components like microservices and containers easily.
Advantages of Cloud-Native Development:-
Scalability:- Easy to scale up or down systems to meet business needs.
Resilience:- Microservices in cloud-native environments enable resilience. A smaller component failure doesn’t affect the overall ecosystem.
Performance:- Small segments focus on each component allows increases the performance of the overall system.
Dis-Advantages of Cloud-Native Development:-
Portability:- Difficult to move applications to specific clouds.
High Upfront Costs:- for development and deployment of applications with unique features.
Monitoring Challenges:- Requires micro-management of small services.
Cloud-Agnostic Development
What is Cloud-Agnostic?
It is referred to applications and workloads that can be moved seamlessly between cloud platforms — without being bound by operating dependencies. Cloud agnostic tools can work on any cloud platform.
They work just as well on AWS as Microsoft Axure, which means easy service portability without interruptions. Irrespective of the movement you get the same results because the tools do not rely on the underlying features of a specific platform.
It offers companies opportunities for scalability and flexibility, along with customization options to meet specific business requirements.
Pros of Cloud-Agnostic:-
Limitless Portability:- Programs work independently of a platform and hence can be moved anywhere.
Consistent Performance:- Businesses can take advantage of a wider range of features and options to maximize system performance.
Avoid Lock-in:- Portability also translates into freedom from service providers who might change terms or conditions.
Cons of Cloud-Agnostic:-
Dependency on Native APIs:- This would require a lot of code rewrite if plan to move apps to a different cloud provider.
Security:- Dependency on security measures of the third party with less secured data in the firewall.
Expensive:- Often these are costlier than Cloud-Native architecture.
When organizations proceed with their cloud strategy, some stakeholders are not able to distinguish between cloud-native and cloud-agnostic architectures. Here are some considerations while choosing either of the services.
Cloud-Native Architecture:-
Design Agility:-
The options for enhancements can help both design and architecture since it does not rely on third-party services. Being well-integrated with native services gives it the flexibility to merge with other services.
Lightweight Services:-
The combination of services in a cloud-native architecture complies with communication service providers (CSP). This ensures a lightweight architecture and easy configuration with a steady pattern of a setup mechanism even when templates solutions like CloudFormation or ARM (Azure Resource Manager) are used.
Easy Integration:-
Depending on the CSP’s maturity, native services can easily interact and integrate with each other as there is no third-party service dependency and adherence required in-built native security.
Cloud-Agnostic Architecture:-
Agnostic Design:-
A company that wants to go cloud-agnostic would want to tap in on the benefits of this architecture. For instance — if monitoring services are implemented with Prometheus, the move from Azure to AWS is much easier since it uses the same workload provisioning script.
OpenSource Integration:-
Being cloud-agnostic means having access to multiple technologies that can expand the tech stack and allow you to change your strategy according to your needs. This is very beneficial since companies often look for ways to innovate and speed and scale.
Ideal For Multi-Cloud Strategy:-
Saving time and cutting costs during rework activities is a major concern for every cloud provider. Uniformly in services and component choices across multi-cloud application deployment can be very helpful. Being cloud-agnostic is beneficial in such situations since it reuses the solution design for multi-cloud environments.
Summing Up:-
To conclude the comparison between cloud-native and cloud-agnostic doesn’t always need choosing one over the other.
Cloud-native solutions are architected for specific platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. Cloud-agnostic solutions, however, do not rely on a particular platform and can be moved between platforms to meet the desired changes. This gives organizations the flexibility they need as they scale.
Before deciding between the two, organizations must plan a roadmap for cloud adoption and understand their long-term goal for it. From the above, it is evident that companies can devise success in a combined environment as they balance out each other’s limitations. However, the update to both represents a significant culture and systematic risk for business.
Whether you are at the early stages of your business or looking to enhance your current solutions, you need to select a partner who can help assess your current needs and challenges that can have a huge impact on your overall success.
CodeStore Technologies is a leading cloud app development company, that can enable you to develop customized solutions for maximizing efficiency across your business. We can address your specific questions and can provide you with great insights into the unique needs of your business.
For more information share your requirements at sales@codestoresolutions.com.
