Docker is a platform for packaging, deploying, and running applications. Docker applications run in containers that can be used on any system: a developer’s laptop, systems on premises, or in the cloud. Containerization is a technology that’s been around for a long time, but it’s seen new life with Docker. It packages applications as images that contain everything needed to run them: code, runtime environment, libraries, and configuration.

For quite a while now, cloud-native has been one of the hottest topics in software development. Some developers just call it hype that will lose traction and disappear after some time. For others, it’s the future of software development. Whatever the future will bring, cloud-native is currently one of the biggest trends in the software industry. It has already changed the way we think about developing, deploying and operating software products. But what exactly is “cloud native”?