As the cloud evolves, developers have evolved. Hybrid cloud has come to the forefront, and more customers are choosing to adopt containers than ever before. Cloud-native architecture is changing, and customers are changing with it.

Mathew Lodge, COO of Weaveworks, Inc., sat down with with John Furrier (@furrier) and Lisa Martin (@Luccazara), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during OpenStack Days: Silicon Valley 2016 to talk about the state of cloud-native architecture and what customers are doing to utilize it.

The popularity of containers

In 2010, when OpenStack was first getting off the ground, former VMware, Inc. CEO Paul Maritz laid out the plans for VMWare’s cloud-native architecture and how it would operate. He was mostly right on point with his vision; however, some recent trends in cloud development have brought unexpected nuances that have shifted how people are utilizing the technology — in particular: containers.

“I think the big thing that wasn’t around then was containers,” said Lodge. “And that has turned into this really great, enabling technology for this style of architecture. It’s made it a lot easier to make that transition.”

The architectural mindset shift

Modern companies moving to the cloud are looking for their applications to be faster, more agile and unique, and they are realizing that this is not possible with traditional off-the-shelf products like those used in the past. More organizations are now writing their own code in an effort to have their brand stand out and because they believe that is what customers expect.

They want their applications to be like Facebook or Amazon but with content specific to their company. The utilization of containers by OpenStack is helping them achieve this in an easier, more efficient fashion.

“Writing software yourself is now part of competitive differentiation,” explained Lodge. “Containers make it much, much easier to follow that same model.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the OpenStack Days: Silicon Valley 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE