This document discusses the evolution from traditional "pets" applications to modern "cattle" and "germs" approaches in cloud native applications. It describes how the loss of control and stability in cloud environments necessitated moving from tightly coupled applications managed like "pets" to loosely coupled microservices treated like "cattle". It outlines challenges in observing, managing, and ensuring resilience for dynamic systems composed of numerous semi-autonomous components in a public cloud environment. The document advocates drawing inspiration from biological systems' self-organization to build complex adaptive software systems capable of surviving in unpredictable, hostile conditions.

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Cloud native: The pets, the
cattle and the germs
Avishai Ish-Shalom (@nukemberg)

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“Native Cloud Application (NCA) refers to a type
of computer software that natively utilizes
services and infrastructure provided by cloud
computing providers”

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“scalable applications in modern, dynamic
environments such as public, private, and hybrid
clouds”

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“Containers, service meshes,
microservices, immutable infrastructure,
and declarative APIs exemplify this
approach.
These techniques enable loosely
coupled systems that are resilient,
manageable, and observable”

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The age of pets

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root@app-server ~$

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Manageable through tight coupling
Tight coupling through reliability
Reliability through stable environment
Stable environment through control

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root@app-server ~$

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We lost control of the environment
● Unreliable network
● Noisy neighbours
● Flaky performance
● Servers just go away

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root@app-3 ~$

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We lost statis
● Number of servers change
● IP addresses change
● Network topology changes
● Data conflicts

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The age of cattle

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root@appymuppy-23 ~$

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Microservices
● Single purpose, semi autonomous
● Loosely coupled
● Blackboxes
● API

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root@appymuppy-23 ~$
root@i-82a4f21a ~$
root@app-server ~$
root@app-3 ~$

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Production change every 3 minutes (avg)
Code deployed every 7 seconds (avg)

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Production?
Which one???

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You don’t have a production environment
● Every client talks to multiple different systems
● On difference DCs/clouds
● Did I mention A/B tests?
● Or personalization?

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You have production environments
● Every transaction sees a unique “environment”
● One time environment
● Non repeatable

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The cloud is inherently public

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Complex dynamic system hosted in an
uncontrollable, dynamic environment

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The age of germs

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Biological systems
● Semi autonomous cooperating cells
● Self organizing
● Surviving in an uncontrollable, sometimes hostile environment
● Dynamic, constant birth/death
● Homeostatis

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“A complex adaptive system is a system in
which a perfect understanding of the individual
parts does not automatically convey a perfect
understanding of the whole system's behavior”

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It’s a brave new world

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New challenges
Observing a dynamic, information rich network
Managing numerous semi-autonomous components
Understanding a loosely coupled self organizing ensemble
Controlling a non-linear chaotic system
Security in a public, hostile environment
Macro level resilience with unique one-time topology

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Computer immunology, 1998
Mark Burgess, father of Promise theory and
Configuration Management
● Macro level stability
● Convergence
● Continuous active maintenance

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We’re here to help
Different is better than better

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Thank you
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