Product Development in the Age of Cloud Native John Mark Walker*, Founder, OSEN
Product Development in the
Age of Cloud NativeJohn Mark Walker*, Founder, OSEN
What is Cloud Native?
“Cloud-native applications are purpose built for the cloud model. These
applications—built and deployed in a rapid cadence by small, dedicated
feature teams to a platform that offers easy scale-out and hardware
decoupling—offer organizations greater agility, resilience, and portability
across clouds.”
- pivotal.io
• Assumptions: Agile, devops, open source, comprehensive CI/CD
• Fully buzzword compliant
What is Cloud Native?
…and fully buzzword compliant
Let’s Unpack This - Waterfall
Beginning of development
Releases
Let’s Unpack This – Waterfall-ish to Agile
Beginning of development
Releases
Cons:
• Narrowly focused on singular project/product
• Doesn’t account for reuse / collaboration
• Assumes only one endpoint or result
Pros:
• Fast-moving, rapid development
• Assumes CI/CD model
Supply Chain Funnel
Cutting edge components
Finished Product
Integration + PM Process
Open Source Software Supply Chain Funnel
Individual
Components
Open
Source
Distribution
Community “Product”
for End Users
Finished
Product
2nd Stage: “Middle” Distribution
Open
Source
Distribution
Community “Product”
for End Users
• Artifact of BC (Before CI) era
• Required stopping point from leading edge to polished
• Great way to see if product design would hold together
• In the old days, components were individually packaged and maintained
• Source code repos were not easily distributed
• Don’t need 2nd stage if continuously improving and integrating along path to multiple releases
• In a linear development path, 2nd stage obsolete
Cloud Native Supply Chain Funnel
Individual
Components
Released
ProductContinuous Improvement
Agile Processes
Cloud Native Supply Chain Funnel
Open Source
Components
Release
Continuous Improvement
Agile Processes
Release Release
v1 v2 v3
…vN+1
What Purpose Does the 2nd Stage Serve?
• The community distribution filled other purposes, perhaps unwittingly
• More relevant once you take a non-linear view
• It’s all about the ecosystem
• 1 code base serves many masters
Open Source Platform
Product
Community
Community Product
Community
Product
ProductCommunity
It Was Never About Innovation
There is an art …or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the
ground and miss.
The first part is easy. All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your weight,
and the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt.
…Clearly, it is the second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.
One problem is that you have to miss the ground accidentally. It's no good deliberately intending to
miss the ground because you won't. You have to have your attention suddenly distracted by
something else when you're halfway there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about
the ground, or about how much it's going to hurt if you fail to miss it.
- Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Innovation and Open Source
• Innovation was never the intent, but an interesting side benefit
• The intent was to create a fair system for creating and using software
• Innovation happened because of the rules governing open source systems
Old proprietary model
Vendor
Customer
Open source model
Vendor Customer
Cloud Native Supply Chain Funnel - Issues
Open Source
Components
Release
Continuous Improvement
Agile Processes
Release Release
v1 v2 v3
…vN+1
● Assumes single product destination
● How can you try “crazy stuff” without
messing up release process?
● How do external communities collaborate?
Orthogonal Innovation
Individual
Components
Open
Source
Distribution
Finished
Product
Communities in the Ecosystem
Products in the Ecosystem
Orthogonal Innovation: Real World Examples
Individual
Components
CloudFoundry.orgPivotal Cloud
Foundry
Communities in the Ecosystem
Products in the Ecosystem
Orthogonal Innovation: Real World Examples
Individual
Components
Debian Ubuntu
Communities in the Ecosystem
Products in the Ecosystem
Orthogonal Innovation: Real World Examples
Individual
Components
Moby Docker
Communities in the Ecosystem
Products in the Ecosystem
Orthogonal Innovation: Pros and Cons
Cons
• It’s messy, complicated
• Not every project needs to be a platform for the world
Pros
• Constant integration of new technology on multiple axes
• Build reliable supply chain, and influence multiple supply chains
• Core platform gets lots of extra testing and bug-fixing from multiple sources
• Reduces risk from external communities adding/changing code
Release ReleaseRelease
Release ReleaseRelease
Thank you!
How may we contact thee? Let me count the ways!
Web site: https://osenetwork.com/
Twitter: @osenetwork
Email: [email protected]
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