This section provides an overview of the Open Application Model (OAM) and its terminology. It begins by identifying the organization roles that are involved in the process of running cloud native applications. From there, it lays out the specific terminology that is used throughout this document.

This documentation proposes a model that defines cloud native applications as follows:

A cloud native application is a collection of interrelated, but discrete components (services, tasks, workers) that, when coupled with configuration and instantiated in a suitable runtime infrastructure, together accomplish a unified functional purpose.

In current release, this application model defines the following:

• Components represents a runnable unit, together with a description (schematic).
• Workload types identify the different workloads that a component can execute.
• Traits are overlays that augment a component with additional operations-specific features. Traits represent operator concerns, not developer/software owner concerns.
• Application scopes represent application boundaries by grouping components with common properties or dependencies.
• An application configuration assembles a set of component instances, their traits, and the application scopes in which they are placed, combined with configuration parameters and metadata.

Thus, an application is a collection of components with a set of operational traits and scoped together into one or more application boundaries.