Software Architect's Handbook

Disposability

The processes of a cloud-native application should be disposable so that they can be started or stopped at any time. Processes should be designed so that they start up as quickly as possible and are able to shut down gracefully.

Cloud-native applications should be robust against crashing. In the event that an application does crash, it should have the ability to start back up without requiring extra effort. Applications with these qualities related to disposability allow for elastic scaling by the cloud provider as well as quick deployment of code and/or configuration changes. If the startup times for the processes of a cloud-native application are too slow, it can lead to lower levels of availability during periods of high-volume ...