A Systematic Mapping Study of Cloud-native Application Design and Engineering

Cloud computing is a desirable paradigm that is providing services to users in a convenient manner and ensuring that Cloud service providers have value for their infrastructure. Applications designed to run explicitly on the Cloud are usually referred to as Cloud-native applications. Determining a research focus in a particular field of study is sometimes challenging. A systematic mapping study gives an insight into the research level that is being conducted in any field of interest. The results generated from such study are presented using a map. The method used in this study was analyzing three facets categories namely, topics, research and contribution. Topics were retrieved from primary studies, while type of research such as evaluation and contribution such as tool, were used in the analysis. The objective of this study is to conduct a systematic mapping study of Cloud-native applications designs and engineering. This will provide an insight into the frequency of work that has been done in cloud-native applications area. The results showed that from publications relating to security in the field of metric (1.94%), more articles in the topic of application in terms of tool (13.59%), more work done on architecture in terms of model (15.53%), more papers published on Cloud migration in the area of method (10.68%). Furthermore, 11.82% publications were identified on applications in terms of evaluation research, more publication on implementation in the area of validation research (1.82%), more publications on implementation in solution research (6.36%), more publications on security and application with respect to philosophical research (1.82%) and more work done on applications in terms of experience research (6.36%). From the study, several gaps were identified which would be beneficial to researchers, practitioners and providers.