From Data Pipelines to Platform Tooling: A Holistic Framework for Cloud-Native Backend Development

Abstract

Cloud-native backend development has evolved rapidly, transitioning from monolithic architectures to microservices, serverless functions, and containerized applications managed by sophisticated orchestration platforms. This review provides a holistic framework for cloud-native backend development, tracing its historical evolution, examining key architectural patterns, and analyzing the tooling ecosystems that enable efficient development and deployment. We explore the transformation from data pipelines, which initially focused on data movement and transformation, towards comprehensive platform toolings that provide end-to-end development and deployment capabilities. Core themes covered include microservices architecture and serverless computing, highlighting their benefits and challenges in the cloud-native context. We also delve into containerization technologies like Docker and orchestration tools like Kubernetes, discussing their role in automating deployment and scaling applications. A critical comparison of different backend development approaches, focusing on trade-offs between cost, performance, scalability, and maintainability, is presented. This review also identifies key challenges faced by developers in adopting cloud-native practices, such as complexity in distributed systems, vendor lock-in, and security concerns. Finally, we discuss future perspectives, including the rise of low-code/no-code platforms and the increasing importance of observability and automated testing in ensuring the reliability and performance of cloud-native backends. This review serves as a comprehensive guide for developers and architects looking to navigate the complexities of cloud-native backend development and build scalable, resilient, and cost-effective solutions.