Cloud-Native

Containers package an application with its dependencies into an isolated, portable unit that runs consistently across environments. Docker popularized OS-level virtualization using Linux namespaces and cgroups, enabling sub-second startup times and near-native performance compared to traditional VMs.

Kubernetes (K8s) is the industry-standard container orchestration platform that automates deployment, scaling, and management of containerized workloads. Its declarative model and reconciliation loop ensure actual cluster state continuously converges to desired state.

Serverless computing abstracts away server management entirely, letting developers deploy individual functions that scale automatically from zero to millions of invocations. Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) platforms like AWS Lambda charge per-invocation with sub-second billing granularity.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) manages and provisions cloud resources through machine-readable definition files rather than manual console clicks or ad-hoc scripts. IaC enables version-controlled, peer-reviewed, repeatable infrastructure with the same rigor applied to application code.

Service discovery enables services in a distributed system to find and communicate with each other without hardcoded addresses. As containers and pods are created and destroyed dynamically, a discovery mechanism maintains an up-to-date registry of available service instances and their locations.

Immutable infrastructure treats servers and deployments as disposable artifacts that are replaced rather than modified. Instead of patching a running server (mutable), you build a new image with the changes and replace the old instance entirely, ensuring consistency and eliminating configuration drift.

GitOps uses Git as the single source of truth for declarative infrastructure and application configuration. Changes are made via pull requests, and automated agents continuously reconcile cluster state to match the desired state defined in the Git repository.