Editor’s Note: The following is an article written for and published in DZone’s 2024 Trend Report, Cloud Native: Championing Cloud Development Across the SDLC.

When it comes to software engineering and application development, cloud native has become commonplace in many teams’ vernacular. When people survey the world of cloud native, they often come away with the perspective that the entire process of cloud native is for the large enterprise applications. A few years ago, that may have been the case, but with the advancement of tooling and services surrounding systems such as Kubernetes, the barrier to entry has been substantially lowered. Even so, does adopting cloud-native practices for applications consisting of a few microservices make a difference?