[[introduction]]
= Introduction

https://pivotal.io/platform-as-a-service/migrating-to-cloud-native-application-architectures-ebook[Cloud Native] is a style of application development that encourages easy adoption of best practices in the areas of continuous delivery and value-driven development.
A related discipline is that of building https://12factor.net/[12-factor Applications], in which development practices are aligned with delivery and operations goals -- for instance, by using declarative programming and management and monitoring.
Spring Cloud facilitates these styles of development in a number of specific ways.
 The starting point is a set of features to which all components in a distributed system need easy access.

Many of those features are covered by https://projects.spring.io/spring-boot[Spring Boot], on which Spring Cloud builds. Some more features are delivered by Spring Cloud as two libraries: Spring Cloud Context and Spring Cloud Commons.
Spring Cloud Context provides utilities and special services for the `ApplicationContext` of a Spring Cloud application (bootstrap context, encryption, refresh scope, and environment endpoints). Spring Cloud Commons is a set of abstractions and common classes used in different Spring Cloud implementations (such as Spring Cloud Netflix and Spring Cloud Consul).

