When we Talk about Cloud ☁️ (the one which is related to Tech), We are almost bound to come across this 4 letter word "CNCF" once in a while, and just in case you guys still haven't heard about "CNCF" then brace yourselves!!

As We are going to Talk about the Super-Hyped and Cool word in the Market right now i.e "CNCF".

If we google "CNCF" this is what the Wikipedia page tells us.

While the information provided by the 'Wikipedia' page is accurate, it can be "Overwhelming" to some folks like me 🙈 . As I always used to think "Cloud" in Tech is some super esoteric word which only the smart Folk knows about (While it's true the folks working with the Cloud are Smart ;P )But even a student like me can learn about it and that's when I came across this one course about "Cloud Native Fundamentals" By SUSE.

But Before we jump onto what is "CNCF" or Cloud Native, let's know the difference between Cloud & Cloud-Native.

The difference between Cloud and Cloud Native is Cloud is like running on somebody else's computers it's really about a service that provides a level of management whether they're just managing hardware or they're managing a higher level service and so it's really about outsourcing some of the burdens of running and using systems.

Cloud-Native on the other hand takes the best aspects of cloud which I think are you know API driven self-service and elastic takes those things and thinks about how do we add a process and tool in an organizational level reinvent how we do things to take advantage of that stuff how do we take advantage of the unique aspects of cloud.

(Check out this small video that says the same -What is the difference between cloud and cloud-native?

So What is Cloud-Native?

Cloud-Native refers to the set of practices that empowers an organization to build and manage applications at scale while using private, hybrid, or public cloud providers.

The Key to Cloud-Native deployment is speed & agility or How quickly an organization can respond to change & increase its feature velocity.

While we're talking about Cloud-Native deployment we should also be talking about "Containers".

Containers are closely associated with Cloud-Native terminology. Containers are used to run a single application with all required dependencies. The main characteristics of containers are easy to manage, deploy, and fast to recover. As such, often, a microservice-based architecture is chosen in tandem with cloud-native tooling. Microservices are used to manage and configure a collection of small, independent services that can be easily packaged and executed within a container.

What does Increased Adoption of the Containers mean?

With the increased usage of Containers, it was imperative to introduce a tool that would manage Containers at Scale. Hence the Origin of all the tools like:

- Docker Swarm

-Apache Mesos

-Kubernetes

Kubernetes takes the Lead!! 😉

Despite the availability of lots of tools that would help in managing the Containers at Scale, Kubernetes took the lead in defining how containerized workloads should be ~

• Deployed

• Managed

• Configured

What is Kubernetes?

Overall, Kubernetes is a container orchestrator that is capable to solutionize the integration of the following functionalities:

• Runtime

• Networking

• Storage

• Service Mesh

• Logs and metrics

• Tracing

Kubernetes had its first initial release in 2014 and it derives from Borg, a Google open-source container orchestrator. Currently, Kubernetes is part of CNCF or the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. CNCF was founded in 2015, and it provides a vendor-neutral home to open-source projects such as Kubernetes, Prometheus, ETCD, Envoy, and many more.

Check out the Cloud Native Landscape, by clicking here

Now as we've talked about "Kubernetes, there is something more important to know about i.e "Cloud-Native" Adoption.

Cloud-Native Adoption

Cloud-Native tooling has wide adoption in the Industry lately, This is due to its ability to deliver value to customers in a short amount of time and the ability to easily extend to accommodate new requirements.

From a business perspective, the adoption of cloud-native tooling represents:

1. Agility - to perform strategic transformations for the acceleration of business velocity.

1. Growth - which represents quick iterations that can increase customer satisfaction and lead to the growth of the customer base.

1. Service availability - ensures the product is available to customers 24/7.

From a technical perspective, the adoption of cloud-native tooling represents:

• Automation - release a service without human intervention.

• Orchestration - introduce a container orchestrator to manage thousands of services with minimal effort.

• Observability - ability to independently troubleshoot and debug each component.

[Check out an article on "Cloud-Native Adoption" from Kubermatic,by clicking here](https://www.kubermatic.com/blog/why-you-should-go-cloud-native-in-2020/

Why Should you Join Open-Source Communities?

Open-source software is a common way of thinking and collaborating in the creation of new software. The open-source software community connects people from around the world. Some people are putting their first coding steps here. On the other hand, seasoned veterans continue contributing and help junior members getting up to speed.

And the Most Important Part is they are Super fun!!👻 💙

So this is What "CNCF" and "Cloud-Native" is all about on the Foundational Level. (Pretty sure there is more to it :P). But Now its Time to wrap-up my "First-Blog" with the hope of "You all finding it helpful. The Action Items for you folks are:

• Check Out this Course "Cloud Native Fundamentals" By SUSE
• Join the Open-source Communities like - DoK( Data on Kubernetes), CNCF, Cloud-Native Mentoring, Kubernetes.

If you liked this Blog and want to see more of such Blogs and the Guy behind it 👻 , Here's is my Twitter & LinkedIn.