If you have landed here you probably already know about Napptive, the platform that can help you start your journey into cloud-native application development. Maybe you’ve done your research through our documentation, or maybe you have even signed up for our free plan with your GitHub account. Whichever the case, here are some ways Napptive can make your life easier when working with the cloud.

Cloud-native application development: How can Napptive help

Cloud-native application development has quite a steep learning curve. Here at Napptive we are very aware of that, and our goal is to give you the support you need to participate in the latest app development revolution at your own pace. Napptive will deal with the underlying structure so you can focus on what matters to you: your applications.

Cloud-native application development for developers

The dev team will notice it the most. If you’ve been developing cloud-native apps until now, you will find that all the time dedicated to adapting to the infrastructure and worrying about the lower layers of the system is now freed up to actually work on what matters most, the apps.

Surely there will still be times on standby, right? The environments needed for development and deployment won’t create themselves out of thin air… They certainly won’t, but the procedure for creating them is so easy that the developers will have no problems doing it themselves. Gone are the days of reusing existing environments for multiple purposes; with the difficulty and waiting times of obtaining new ones out of the picture, there’s no excuse for sloppy environment organization and unwanted interactions.

And if they can create the environments they need, application deployment is simple and straightforward. Our intuitive web interface, or the descriptive CLI commands, will provide the tools needed to manage the app’s life cycle cleanly and efficiently.

Agility, frequency of app updates, innovation… Napptive is the bridge you need to get to the promised improvements that are to come with cloud-native application development.

Napptive enables developer self-service. We encourage you to try our playground and experience accelerated cloud-native development. It’s completely free, all you need to do is simply sign up and get started!

Cloud-native application development for developers with container experience

Not only can they enjoy the perks already mentioned, but their workload regarding containers will also be significantly reduced.

The Napptive platform provides support for an Application entity based on the Open Application Model (OAM). The developer describes the application composition and how it must be deployed in a simple, high-level manner, and the system translates this information into the low-level Kubernetes entities (as well as the subtle changes those entities require when changing from one cloud provider to another). This feature also ensures that the applications are deployable if/when the infrastructure is modified, with no changes on the developer’s part.

The developer team gains a lot of autonomy regarding resource management with the tools provided by Napptive: since there is no need for vast Kubernetes knowledge to solve most of the issues anymore, the dev team can deal with them, instead of needing to escalate them to other departments. For example, as new requirements (e.g. persistent volumes) can be easily configured, application design becomes much more flexible and agile. Also, integrating remote environments and defining cleanup options for the environment to automatically reclaim resources are not complex issues anymore.

Will it be useful for developers with K8s experience?

Developers with Kubernetes experience will find the platform versatile and adaptable, giving them tools to manage the system while also taking care of the pesky low-level tasks that hinder their productivity.

For starters, Napptive works with a cluster that has already been installed with multiple users in mind, so there is no need to install or provision K8s, or to worry about security and multi-tenant implications. The manifest is updated automatically depending on the target Kubernetes version, so they don’t have to do that manually. And also, there is no need to share a root level kubeconfig with other developers.

Furthermore, Napptive is a high-level layer on top of Kubernetes, and it is porous, meaning that it can give access to the low-level layer if needed. In case the team wants something very specific that can’t be done through Napptive, it is possible to work directly with Kubernetes too.

Cloud-native application development for QA

We wholeheartedly agree. The QA team will make sure that everything in the app flows smoothly, and they deserve a system that lets them do their work properly.

With the Napptive platform they will have the opportunity to easily define and generate ephemeral environments for testing purposes, and also share them with other members of the team. These testing environments can be linked with specific debugging issues, helping the dev team in their quest to fix them. Furthermore, there is no need for extensive integration tests, as the abstraction layer covers different types of infrastructure. This is especially useful for tests involving different infrastructure providers or Kubernetes versions and saves time and resources.

How would the DevOps team workload change?

The DevOps team’s workload will be lightened the most, liberating them from the bulk of cloud management.

They won’t spend as much time installing and destroying clusters, since Napptive uses environments and their management is in the developers’ hands. This also means that there is less infrastructure to manage (fewer clusters used) because we are making the most of the clusters that are in use. Management of the existing virtual clusters becomes much easier, and in a dynamic multi-cluster environment Napptive will take care of security and multi-tenancy so they don’t have to. The platform also makes it nearly effortless to manage users in on-premise installations.

In short, the number of developer tickets will drastically decrease, allowing the team to spend more time on the infrastructure, maintenance, and monitoring tasks that actually have an impact on the developed applications.

Napptive is here to provide your team with the support they need so they can bring your product to the next level.

If you want to propel your development, why not try our playground? It’s free, simply sign up and get started!