On May 12 , the 2023 Tongming Lake Forum-Yunyuan sub-forum hosted by Digital China, co-organized by Beijing Economic Development Zone National Xinchuang Park and Zhongguancun Cloud Computing Industry Alliance was held in Beijing . During the forum, Digital China, together with Beijing Tongming Lake Information Technology Application Innovation Center, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and Tongming Cloud, officially released the "White Paper on the Development of Cloud-Native Application Engine Technology" (hereinafter referred to as: White Paper), which provides a panoramic view of the cloud-native technology map. The white paper deeply analyzes the current situation and future of the development of cloud-native application engine technology in my country from multiple dimensions such as the definition of cloud-native application engine, product form, industry application scenarios, and future trends, and explains how to realize the "root" of cloud-native application engine through application engine Technological breakthroughs drive the construction of cloud-native industrial ecology.
Cloud Native Application Engine Technology Development White Paper & Cloud Native Technology Map Release
Cloud-native technologies and concepts centered on containers, microservices, and DevOps promote the vigorous development of the cloud-native industry ecology. As enterprises go deeper into the cloud and use the cloud, business applications are becoming fully cloud-based, and enterprises' demand for cloud-native upgrades requires an underlying cloud-native application engine to support rapid cloud-based transformation of business applications. For example, the sidecar form of Application Engine can migrate to the cloud without any modification of traditional applications; another example, Application Engine, as an application server, provides a standard microservice framework for business. In addition, the transformation of traditional technical fields, such as databases and data warehouses, into cloud services also requires the support of cloud-native application engines.
Panoramic drawing cloud native technology map
After years of development, the concept of cloud native has been continuously enriched, implemented, and practiced, and has entered a period of rapid development. Cloud-native technology drives and leads enterprise business development with its high efficiency, stability, and quick response, and helps enterprises build application services that are more suitable for cloud environments. The white paper depicts the map of cloud native technology, sorts out and shows the whole picture of cloud native technology, on the one hand, it provides an important reference for users to master cloud native technology, on the other hand, it points out the direction for the development of cloud native technology in the future. At the same time, the cloud-native technology map focuses on the key role played by the application engine as a data plane in the cloud-native technology architecture.
The future cloud-native technology architecture includes the following four levels: The support plane provides infrastructure support for the entire cloud-native application, including physical hardware, network and other resources, as well as virtualization technology that adapts to cloud dynamic planning and configuration. At the same time, immutable infrastructure such as basic software and containers is also a key content of the supporting plane. On the supporting plane is the service grid of the cloud environment, which is a popular architecture for the evolution of cloud-native technologies, enabling more east-west capability control. The implementation of the service grid includes a data plane and a control plane. The former, whether in the form of a proxy or an application server, carries specific business traffic, while the latter is responsible for controlling the data plane. The management plane is responsible for the overall delivery, O&M, and operation of cloud-native applications, especially in combination with AI data analysis, which plays an extremely important role in improving overall resource utilization, fault diagnosis, and automated orchestration and scheduling.
Cloud native technology map
As shown in the figure above, based on the support and management of hardware and software infrastructure, the management, optimization and control of related resources by the control plane, the cloud native application engine is positioned on the data plane in the service grid, based on advanced technologies such as data processing and information communication Drive application engine development.
Ma Fei, Director of the Cloud Computing Department of CAICT
Ma Fei, Director of the Cloud Computing Department of the China Institute of Information and Communication Technology, pointed out that "the integration of cloud-native application engines and other cloud-native technologies can provide enterprises with a solid cloud-based technology base, thereby realizing the upgrade of cloud-native technology for enterprise applications."
The application engine is the "engine" for the flow of information in the cloud native architecture
Application Engine is a runtime configuration service program for Internet and cloud-native applications. It has the capabilities of environment awareness, security control, acceleration optimization, etc., and generally presents products such as Web services, streaming media services, proxies (Proxy), application middleware, API gateways, ingress/egress gateways, sidecars, and message queues.
Cloud Native Application Engine Architecture
The white paper points out that in the cloud-native architecture, in addition to providing the north-south communication gateway function, the application engine also provides east-west communication in the service grid, transparent traffic hijacking, fusing, telemetry and fault injection, link tracking, and blue-green publishing. And other new features, so the application engine plays a more critical role in the cloud native architecture.
Li Gang, technical director of Digital China, director of Tongming Lake Cloud and Xinchuang Research Institute
Li Gang, technical director of Digital China and director of Tongming Lake Cloud and Xinchuang Research Institute, said, "It is foreseeable that cloud native will lead the new future of the digital world. engines and controllers, gradually becoming the innovation center of information technology.”
As a basic component in cloud-native environment deployment, the application engine has the characteristics of stateless capability, observability capability, dynamic configuration capability, and DevOps integration capability. Currently, mainstream cloud-native application engines in the industry include NGINX, Envoy, Linkerd, and NJet application engines.
Wu Ruosong, general manager of Tongzhiyun
Wu Ruosong, general manager of Tongzhiyun, pointed out when introducing the NJet application engine, "NJet application engine has the characteristics of high performance, stability, and easy expansion. At the same time, it also solves the long-standing problems of NGINX, such as difficult dynamic configuration and management functions affecting business. "
The application engine achieves a breakthrough in cloud-native "root" technology innovation
The cloud native technology stack has developed relatively mature, and its core areas have formed a unified de facto standard. For example, K8s in the field of container orchestration, and Istio in the field of service mesh. The core technologies in these fields are mainly dominated by foreign companies, and our country started relatively late, making technological innovation difficult. Compared with these cloud-native core technology fields, the technical route in the application engine field has not yet been unified, and the product forms are diversified. The white paper points out that the field of cloud-native application engines is an important opportunity for my country to accelerate catching up and overtaking in the cloud-native industry. It is of great significance to quickly make technological breakthroughs in this field.
Cao Junwei, director of Beijing Tongming Lake Information Technology Application Innovation Center, said, "Some domestic companies have experience in application engine development and have the foundation for innovation. At present, domestic companies are closely following the international industry development trend in the technology research and development of cloud-native application engines, and already have Application engine development capabilities."
Ma Fei emphasized, "The scale and prospects of the cloud-native industry are huge, but many technical fields represented by container orchestration, service grid, and application engine are still in the window period, and integration and challenges coexist. It is necessary for our country to gather cloud-native research. A technical architecture system that meets the needs of information technology innovation and lays out the industrial ecology."