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Citation: Kratzke, N. Cloud-Native
Applications and Services. Future
Internet 2022,14, 346.
https://doi.org/10.3390/fi14120346
Received: 14 November 2022
Accepted: 15 November 2022
Published: 22 November 2022
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future internet
Editorial
Cloud-Native Applications and Services
Nane Kratzke
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Lübeck University of Applied Sciences,
Mönkhofer Weg 239, 23562 Lübeck, Germany; nane.kratzke@th-luebeck.de
1. Introduction
This Special Issue presents some of the most recent innovations in cloud-native soft-
ware and system engineering practices providing a broad and well-grounded picture of
what the more and more frequently used term “Cloud-native” is currently used for. The
contributions also address ad hoc approaches that became necessary as temporary mea-
sures in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and that substantially changed remote work
and gather research from different disciplines and methodological backgrounds to discuss
new ideas, research questions, recent results, and future challenges in the emerging area of
cloud-native applications. Therefore, all papers cover diverse aspects, such as cloud-based
data collaboratives, the adoption of cloud computing for high-performance computing, the
intelligent and autonomous management of cloud-native networks and even cloud-native
opportunities for volunteer computing.
Even small companies can generate enormous economic growth and business value
by providing cloud-based services or applications. Instagram, Uber, Airbnb, DropBox,
WhatsApp, NetFlix, Zoom, and many more astonishing small companies all had very
modest headcounts in their early days. However, these “cloud-native” enterprises have all
had a remarkable economic and social impact just a few years later. What is more, these
companies changed the style of how large-scale applications are being built today. What
these companies have in common is their cloud-first approach. They intentionally make use
of cloud resources. These companies can scale their services globally as quickly as needed.
In times of the worldwide COVID-19 shutdowns, these “cloud-native” companies have
emerged as an essential and unaware backbone that can keep even large economies (at least
partly) operating. Services by these cloud-native companies enabled overnight established
remote working opportunities for company staff that found themselves suddenly working
in home offices. These services enable ad hoc remote teaching opportunities for teachers
and students at schools and universities. Currently, these “cloud-native” services were
some of the working things that “kept our heads above water” and substantially changed
how we operated after the pandemic. The contributions of this Special Issue show how the
cloud-native design philosophy can profoundly influence and evolve system design to a
new level of elasticity and agility.
2. Contributions
The papers included in this Special Issue of the Future Internet journal highlight some
emerging issues associated with the cloud-native design philosophy of theoretical and
practical importance.
The first paper [
1
] reports on the design of several XPRIZE multi-million-dollar global
competitions to incentivize the development of technological breakthroughs that accelerate
humanity toward a better future. This paper is a case study of the requirements, design,
and implementation of the XPRIZE Data Collaborative, which is a cloud-based infrastruc-
ture that enables the XPRIZE to meet its COVID-19 mission and host future data-centric
competitions. The authors examine how a cloud-native application can use an unexpected
variety of cloud technologies, ranging from containers, and serverless computing, to even
Future Internet 2022,14, 346. https://doi.org/10.3390/fi14120346 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet
Future Internet 2022,14, 346 2 of 2
older ones, such as virtual machines. The authors also document the pandemic’s effects on
application development in the cloud.
The second paper [
2
] deals with high-performance computing (HPC) as a key en-
abling technology for advancing scientific progress, industrial competitiveness, national
and regional security, and the quality of human life. Recent advances in cloud computing
and telecommunications have the potential to overcome the historical issues associated
with HPC through increased flexibility and efficiency and reduced capital and operational
expenditure. This study compromised a survey of HPC decision-makers worldwide. Addi-
tionally, a modified Delphi method was conducted with 13 experts to identify and prioritize
critical issues in adopting cloud computing for HPC. Results suggest that organizational,
data privacy, security, and human factors significantly influence cloud computing adoption
decisions for HPC.
The third paper [
3
] focused on cloud-native network design, transforming communi-
cation networks to a versatile platform for converged network-cloud/edge service provi-
sioning. Intelligent and autonomous management is one of the most challenging issues
in cloud-native future networks. This paper provides a big picture of the recent devel-
opments of architectural frameworks for intelligent and autonomous management for
future networks. The paper surveys the latest progress in the standardization of network
management architectures and analyzes how cloud-native network design may facilitate
architecture development for addressing management challenges. Open issues related to in-
telligent and autonomous management in cloud-native future networks are also discussed
to identify some possible directions for future research and development.
The last paper [
4
] reports on a fascinating and often overlooked effect of the COVID-19
pandemic. From the beginning, the COVID-19 pandemic created the largest distributed
volunteer supercomputer on earth. Sadly, the largest supercomputer had significant idle
times in the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper reviews the current state of
volunteer and cloud computing to analyze what both domains could learn from each other.
It turns out that the disclosed resource-sharing shortcomings of volunteer computing could
be addressed by technologies that have been invented, optimized, and adapted for entirely
different purposes by cloud-native companies, such as Uber, Airbnb, Google, or Facebook.
Promising technologies might be containers, serverless architectures, image registries, and
distributed service registries, and all have one thing in common: they already exist and are
all tried and tested in large web-scale deployments.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Acknowledgments:
The guest editor wishes to thank all the contributing authors, the professional
reviewers for their precious help with the review assignments, and the excellent editorial support
from the Future Internet journal at every stage of the publication process of this special issue.
Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.
References
1.
Cappellari, M.; Belstner, J.; Rodriguez, B.; Sedayao, J. A Cloud-Based Data Collaborative to Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic and
to Solve Major Technology Challenges. Future Internet 2021,13, 61. https://doi.org/10.3390/fi13030061.
2.
Lynn, T.; Fox, G.; Gourinovitch, A.; Rosati, P. Understanding the Determinants and Future Challenges of Cloud Computing
Adoption for High Performance Computing. Future Internet 2020,12, 135. https://doi.org/10.3390/fi12080135.
3.
Duan, Q. Intelligent and Autonomous Management in Cloud-Native Future Networks—A Survey on Related Standards from an
Architectural Perspective. Future Internet 2021,13, 42. https://doi.org/10.3390/fi13020042.
4.
Kratzke, N. Volunteer Down: How COVID-19 Created the Largest Idling Supercomputer on Earth. Future Internet
2020
,12, 98.
https://doi.org/10.3390/fi12060098.
