Architecture Design Considerations for Cloud-Native Applications

When building an application it is important to allocate time for context discovery. This includes listing all necessary functionalities of the application and enumerating any resources that can enable its buildout.

This phase sets the fundamentals of the project. If properly implemented, it can enable the creation of services that are scalable, resilient, and extensible.

The first step in the context discovery process is to list the functional requirements, or what application capabilities should deliver to the end-users. For example, a good starting point is to expand on the following:

• Stakeholders, such as identifying the personas that require and sponsor the application for example the operations team requiring a new internal tool to manage booking office cold rooms.
• Functionalities, what functionalies are needed for the application to deliver value to the operations team.
• End users, employees part of the operations team
• Input and output process
• Engineering teams, understanding what engineering team can build the solution.

The second step is to enumerate the available resources that facilitate the implementation of the project. For example, a good starting point is to list available:

• Engineering resources, such as the number of engineers that can work on the project.
• Financial resources, how much can the business spend to ensure a successful release of the application.
• Timeframes, when is the application needed and when can it be delivered.
• Internal knowledge, are there engineers on the team with the required skills to build the application.

Having a good understanding of functional requirements and available resources can lead to a simpler choice between monolithic and microservice-based architectures.