Cloud-Native refers to an approach to building and running applications that fully leverage the advantages of cloud computing. Cloud-native systems are designed to scale dynamically, deploy rapidly, and handle complex and distributed environments. These systems rely heavily on microservices, containerization, orchestration, and automation.

Key Characteristics:
Microservices Architecture: Applications are divided into small, independent services that communicate through APIs, enabling scalability and resilience.
Containers: Technologies like Docker package microservices into lightweight, portable units.
Orchestration: Tools like Kubernetes manage containerized workloads, ensuring scalability, resource allocation, and fault tolerance.
Dynamic Scalability: Applications automatically scale up or down to meet demand.
Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD): Automated pipelines ensure rapid and reliable deployment of updates.
Resilience: Designed to recover gracefully from failures using techniques like self-healing and redundancy.
Benefits:
Faster Development: Developers can focus on individual microservices, speeding up feature delivery.
Cost Efficiency: Resource allocation adapts to current needs, avoiding over-provisioning.
Global Availability: Cloud-native apps can run across multiple regions, ensuring high availability and low latency.
Use Cases:
E-commerce: High-traffic applications that need to scale during peak shopping seasons.
Streaming Services: Applications like video streaming that require consistent performance globally.
IoT: Managing data from billions of devices.
Challenges:
Complexity: Requires expertise in containerization, orchestration, and distributed systems.
Security: Protecting dynamic and distributed systems involves advanced tools and strategies.
Adopting cloud-native practices enables organizations to stay agile and competitive in a digital-first world, making it a cornerstone of modern application development.