Author | Zhao Yu Ying
As a native cloud field of the top open source community, Cloud Computing Foundation Native (Native Cloud Foundation, hereinafter referred to as CNCF) recently announced the formation of Application Delivery SIG (application delivery teams), set up this new team will bear any kind of responsibility? In turn will cloud the native areas which new impact? In this paper, InfoQ Ali senior technical experts Lei exclusive interview.
September 12, 2019, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (cloud native Foundation, hereinafter referred to as CNCF) on its official website announced the Application Delivery SIG (hereinafter referred to as App Delivery SIG) was formally established, Ali, Senior Technical Specialist, Kubernetes senior members of the community Zhang Lei, intelligent software company Dynatrace chief technology and strategy innovation officer Alois Reitbauer, and Bryan Liles VMware senior experts was elected co-chair of the first SIG. The same day, Yahoo Finance and other foreign media are also a number of news have been synchronized report .
CNCF App Delivery SIG
According to reports, CNCF field team is a core mechanism CNCF fund operation. Chris Aniszczyk CNCF chief technology officer, said in the official declared: "CNCF field teams play in the expansion and development of cloud native communities in a crucial role, they are helping the entire ecosystem in-depth understanding of these technologies in the field of best practices and with CNCF TOC (technical Monitoring Committee) in close collaboration with the screening of sustainable open source project, or help them make up for deficiencies. " After the official Xuancheng Li App Delivery SIG, CNCF three areas currently administered group, respectively App Delivery SIG, Security SIG and Storage SIG.
At the community level, CNCF field team will be responsible for the "far-sighted way to coordinate and connect the corresponding concerns the technical field, end users and open source projects." In the organizational structure, field teams are usually much from this recognized technical experts in the field of responsible leadership, and the report of CNCF TOC. '
The newly established CNCF App Delivery SIG, Chinese full name is CNCF application delivery teams. The field team is the first group to the field of "application" as the center of CNCF official establishment of the Foundation. In the cloud computing ecosystem focused on the core concerns quickly, "says the native application" Today, the group was hailed as the community is "CNCF most valuable team in the field." After the field team was established, originally CNCF in Serverless Working Group (Serverless Working Group) will also be classified to the next application delivery teams.
For mission CNCF application delivery teams, the team's TOC contacts from Microsoft engineers Michelle Noorali article in the official pointed out:
With application delivery teams, we hope to identify and resolve key issues and core application delivery lifecycle, while optimizing cloud application architectures under the original scene. The team will also work its important collaboration in the delivery of ecology, together with the entire community divide between the screening and correction application management theory with practice and open source projects, promote the standardization of application delivery tools and processes. We look forward to CNCF Foundation can work more closely together with application development and operation and maintenance engineers.
It is worth mentioning that in the previous impression, the Foundation focuses on community CNCF mostly in the field of infrastructure and technical personnel. But after the application delivery group was established, CNCF Foundation is working with application development and application maintenance staff closer together.
future plan
For this newly established field teams, its successor will do what the majority of what is cloud computing developer of great concern, Zhang said: First of all, the field team will gradually establish and promote the "cloud native application management and delivery system standard" . Cloud native application management and delivery is a native cloud technology in the wake of the maturing field of next-generation technology is rapidly becoming an important focal point of cloud computing technology. In the current technology ecosystem which, Kubernetes being built, standardized application infrastructure layer being a universally recognized; Serverless provides an efficient scheduling and resource management model; and Service Mesh is further defined between the non-application intrusive service governance mechanism. These capabilities, we are unified call "platform layer capabilities", the field is the main concern before CNCF Foundation. This time, CNCF application delivery teams are concerned, it is "application management" technology architecture and evolution direction on the "platform layer". This layer, cloud computing is the future ecological value of the focal point.
Application delivery group will work with the entire cloud native community collaboration, co-between "application", "end-user" and "platform layer", build an efficient, reliable delivery of standards and communication system. This idea throughout the application delivery lifecycle, we can through a standard hierarchical structure (native cloud applications layered model) to be expressed in its image:
Under this model, "application definition", "application deployment and delivery" and between "application examples management" will be clear stratification and collaboration. For example, "blue-green release (blue-green deployment)" concerned with application deployment and delivery of the conceptual level, while K8s Deployment (or K8s Operator) is responsible for providing application examples and then the next layer of management capabilities, the two layers mutual interaction, but not coupled together. This layered concept, is the entire cloud computing ecosystem are missing. The cloud native applications hierarchical model, will be the follow-up cloud application delivery native ecology to "standardized", "plug" of, and direction of "separation of duties" of evolving an important theoretical basis, But also it will make based on the "third party applications" ecological K8s Operator production and distribution, uniform nanotubes to native cloud application delivery system in which management.
Secondly, cloud native application delivery infrastructure best practices and paradigms. Application delivery group will work with the open source community with native cloud, in the above-mentioned "cloud native applications hierarchical model" system is progressively abstract, basic paradigms, reference architecture and project examples and best practices to extract the corresponding layers , while the mainstream open source community project management application to sort and summary. Ultimately, these elements will be to "CNCF native cloud application architecture white paper" approach to meet with the entire ecosystem.
Finally, to promote eco-cloud application delivery native to the stratification and evolving standards-based architecture. ** In the theoretical and practical basis, the application delivery team will continue the gradual evolution toward tiered, unified, standard in conjunction with communities and ecosystems, to jointly promote the main line open source project management application. In addition, the group will continue to further the field of screening and hatch open source projects under this system, and through the development of "cloud application delivery native ecology Guide (Cloud Native App Delivery Lanscape)" to help the native cloud users and developers to selection and architecture reference. These are expected to make the end-user community of native cloud application delivery to truly become the biggest beneficiary of the field team.
Alibaba Cloud native technical architecture practice
As an important participant and promoter of CNCF with native cloud technology ecosystem, the Ali Baba a lot of practice at the Internet level scene cloud native technology system .
In 2011, Alibaba began to container and other native cloud technology evolution, the initial goal is to enhance the utilization of the resource itself, then began to explore the dispatch, storage and other direction, and gradually improve the reliability and stability of resources. On this basis, Ali Baba began to think of ways to improve business stability and build a platform-independent application delivery capabilities through technology and concepts such as Kubernetes, vessel design mode, push cloud native sound in Alibaba, elegant floor. After switching to Kubernetes entire platform, Alibaba is currently open is promoting the application management system will open up the economy as a whole, so that the application of automation and self-healing on the basis of a unified infrastructure over; improve monitoring and operation and maintenance of; and let Kubernetes application platform to achieve optimal interaction; integration with the community, the community of new technologies into the interior of Alibaba to help the community to practice landing, and the internal outstanding technical achievements contribute to the community, so that the whole Alibaba native cloud technology stack more open.
Of particular note here it is that application delivery does not mean CI / CD.
The core CI / CD is concerned that the effectiveness of research and development and agile practices, and native cloud application management and delivery technology, is the cornerstone of building and essential part of the infrastructure to application-centric. In fact, the technical basis ** CI practice advanced cloud native application delivery technology is better / CD's. For example, in 2019 KubeCon Shanghai open source OpenKruise project, In fact, inside the Ali settle down, corresponds to the "cloud native applications hierarchical model" in the Application Automation & Operation of this layer with a capacity. With Kruise such as a place to upgrade the entire application delivery system provided by (Inplace Upgrade) and other valuable technical support, which makes Alibaba conduct stateful application delivery became possible under the "double eleven" scenes, but also makes this basis for building CI / CD system become a reality.
After CNCF application delivery group was established, Alibaba will be more closely collaborate with CNCF Foundation, on the one hand actively trying to practice, "says the native application management and delivery system standard" in Internet and cloud products double the scene, on the other hand We will participate in further depth to the cloud native application technology among the open source community.
Conclusion
CNCF application delivery field team set up, can be seen as an important ecological raw technical milestones in the history of the original cloud. It marked the cloud computing ecological concerns are rising gradually from the infrastructure layer to the core values of point "Application Layer" is a native cloud technology. "Cloud native application hierarchical model", "cloud native application delivery standards" and "native cloud application architecture", will become the key word application delivery team follow-up.
Final interview, Zhang Lei concluded: With the rapid development and popularity of cloud computing technology, "cloud native" to this "natural born software in the cloud, long in the cloud" as the basis for the assumption of application management and architecture concept is rapidly popular , but this set up application delivery teams, is the "value of the cloud, we are returning to the application itself" a true portrayal of this trend.
"Alibaba Cloud native micro-channel public number (ID: Alicloudnative) focus on micro service, Serverless, container, Service Mesh and other technical fields, focusing popular technology trends in cloud native, cloud native large-scale landing practice, do most understand cloud native developers technology public number. "