KubeCon 2018: 4 Key Messages to Take Into the New Year

Michael Durand, Cloud Architect

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, the annual conference dedicated Kubernetes and cloud native technologies, attracted 8,000 people to Seattle last week. That number is double last year’s attendance, and it underscores the skyrocketing popularity of DevOps practices and cloud deployments for building new applications and services.

This year saw microservices, containers, and other cloud native technologies getting widely adopted by enterprises across industries. So what can our clients expect to see in 2019? Here are some key messages we took away from KubeCon.

Cloud Native Is for Everyone

The Linux Foundation and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), who organize KubeCon every year, have made it their mission to ensure that cloud native methodologies, patterns, and project are open to everyone. That message came through loud and clear at KubeCon 2018.

Envoy, a service proxy for cloud native applications, has graduated to the CNCF’s highest maturity level. It now joins Kubernetes (container orchestration) and Prometheus (monitoring and alerting) as a project that’s no longer just for early adopters, and instead is ready for prime time. At Kenzan, we’re actively bringing all of these technologies to our clients to help them deliver value faster and stay ahead.

So what can those early adopters look forward to? With 17 projects in incubation, the CNCF and open source community are growing at an incredible pace. We saw a lot of excitement around these incubation projects on the vendor floor and in breakout sessions. We’ll be watching for the next one to graduate at the CNCF and become ready for everyone.

It’s Easier to Adopt Kubernetes (but You Still May Want Help)

Improving operational methods for cloud native applications was a major theme for many speakers at this year’s KubeCon. In her keynote, technology evangelist Liz Rice discussed how Kubernetes has been enthusiastically adopted by both the global open source community and the big cloud providers. Thanks to open source and CNCF efforts, the same code that runs on private clouds also runs on managed Kubernetes instances in the public cloud. And as the Kubernetes platform grows, it’s adding tools to manage deployments and control and monitor distributed applications.

Vendors haven’t overlooked this, and are bringing tools and services to enterprises that have on-premise deployments, with a big presence from RedHat, Cisco, Oracle, VMware, HPE, Pivotal Cloud Foundry, and many others. There are now a wealth of options for managing Kubernetes deployments. In fact, there are so many it can be overwhelming to choose between them. Luckily, there are currently 72 Kubernetes Certified Service Providers, like Kenzan, who can bring experience in implementing cloud native technologies to their clients. Expect these providers to be in high demand next year as they support businesses in getting their teams and core applications on board with cloud native technologies.

The Developer Experience Is Improving

Things aren’t just getting better from an operations perspective — they’re getting better for cloud native developers, too. One great example comes from Airbnb’s journey to transform their team’s agility and productivity.

In her talk, software engineer Melanie Cebula described how Airbnb empowered its developers to migrate many of their production services to Kubernetes. Along the way, Airbnb identified a lot of challenges that make out-of-the-box Kubernetes unfriendly to developers. Then they came up with strategies to address those challenges. For example, by creating custom wrapper scripts for building and deploying services, they standardized processes across developers and builds. At Kenzan, we’re expecting tools and practices like these to make it easier for our clients and their developers to create cloud native applications in the coming year.

Kubernetes Has Become Boring (in a Good Way)

As keynote speaker Janet Kuo from Google happily declared, Kubernetes “is now very, very boring”. And she emphasized, that’s a good thing. While Kubernetes itself is fairly young, it’s based on Google’s own internal cluster management system, which has been in production for over a decade. In the last few years, Kubernetes has rapidly matured, and it now offers robust design patterns like operators, customer resource definitions (CRDs), sidecars, and adapters. These patterns enable new cloud native development, and they allow existing monolithic applications to be integrated into distributed systems.

Toye Idowu, a Platform Engineer at Kenzan, provided a great example for using one of these design patterns to extend Kubernetes’ functionality. To learn more, check out his Linux.com blog post Demystifying Kubernetes Operators with the Operator SDK.

2019: It’s Going to Be a Cloud Native Year

On the final day of KubeCon, the Kenzan team walked away inspired by Kelsey Hightower (Staff Developer Advocate at Google) and his call to developers, reminding them that their main role is to write code that solves business problems. Cloud native concepts and tools are supposed to enable developers to focus on this mission, not to bog them down.

With KubeCon over and the year coming to an end, the lines that define the cloud native space are getting clearer. As open source and CNCF help to define the landscape, we’ll be better able to navigate toward creative solutions for our clients. Whether it’s service mesh, networking, or security, we’re excited for 2019 and a year filled with cloud native integration for our clients.

How about you — what are you looking forward to in 2019, and what are your hopes around cloud native? Let us know in the comments below, or feel free to drop us a line at connect@kenzan.com

Michael Durand is a Cloud Architect at Kenzan with an extensive background in the retail industry specializing in distributed systems with containers. He works on cloud native methodologies and patterns with our clients.