Businesses not ready for network implications of cloud native architecture

Composable applications can be built from connecting microservices that run in their own containers. This cloud-first approach requires a new approach to networking. The next iteration for cloud computing, Cloud 2.0, promises to deliver a flexible IT architecture where applications are built out of microservices running in containers, all orchestrated through Kubernetes. But containerised microservices need full network support, and this presents a massive overhead for DevOps, delegates attending the Cloud Native Computing Forum (CNCF) conference in Copenhagen were warned this week. In a keynote presentation, Lew Tucker, CTO for cloud computing at Cisco, said: “We are rethinking networking for microservices. Distributed computing is not very easy. It is complex because microservices need to communicate.” The challenge facing users of container technology is that a container running a microservice has a network IP address, which needs network management. The IP address is used to enable other containers to communicate with it, in order to build applications based on a microservices architecture. But to support networking, every container needs to provide network security, firewalls, load balancing, messaging queuing and other essential network services. Addressing this overhead is the next phase in the evolution of cloud native computing, according to the CNCF.