KubeCon + CloudNativeCon gathers all CNCF projects under one roof. The aim is to provide a location for the CNCF community to share ideas and thoughts. At Cloudreach we have four main company values. What has this to do with the event? Read on and find out.
One of the cloudy values that resonates throughout the whole conference is being one step ahead. Whilst most of the world is contemplating cloud adoption, the whole of KubeCon are already thinking about the future, and – putting cloud providers aside – how applications can be developed in a cloud native way, making best use of any offerings from any such provider.
Yes, many solutions are provided off the shelf in the Kubernetes space (GKE, EKS, AKS), but they still have their own problems. Often security is questioned, where without insight into the build, trust is hard to achieve. Implementing zero trust networking on top of PaaS services is one such consideration and solution. Something that Istio aims to solve, where Tigera has given the Kubernetes world an early Christmas present: Calico support for Istio announced by Spike Curtis. This means that you no longer have to maintain two different network policies. What on earth am I talking about? Get in touch and find out!
Another phrase which stuck in mind whilst enjoying KubeCon is that culture eats strategy for breakfast – a phrase originated by Peter Drucker, made famous by Ford President Mark Fields, and quoted by Sarah Novotny at the keynote. Being easy to work with must have its place in the world. The community is united and has grown – KubeCon attendance has risen from 150 to 4000 in only 2 years whilst maintaining its open source roots. Members of the community move between companies whilst remaining committed to solving the issues of a cloud native approach – still working together to reach a goal.
Promote personal growth – Kubernetes certified service provider or certified Kubernetes administrator anyone? The CNCF projects are growing by the month and have announced new certification schemes which should be of interest to anyone working in this arena. The conference is by no means a sales event, so if you are looking to learn about new tools and cloud native concepts, this is definitely the place for you.
Such a diverse group of attendees, people from all over the world, in all shapes and sizes, clearly with many different views on technology all gathering in what might be the most liberal location of a very conservative state: Austin, Texas. Little more need be said to prove how there is much respect for the individual and individuality.
So what were the most exciting takeaways from KubeCon NA 2017? With the announcements above being placed aside, here is a small list:
- Kubernetes adoption velocity and innovation surrounding the platform. Some great sessions (e.g. Capital One) talked about how these technologies are being leveraged in production. Many solutions are being built within the ecosystem, and the news of a stable Kubernetes core and modularised approach is very welcome. Release cycles are likely to move from 3 months to 6-12 months, focusing more on module development.
- New CNCF projects – opentracing and Jaeger – hope to provide insight into how microservices run. Monitoring hundreds of applications is very different to monitoring tens.
- Microservices are clearly the architecture of choice in the modern world – the reaction of the community to try and solve such architecture related problems via service mesh concepts is something to be thankful for.
- Can 2018 be the year of the underdogs? Alibaba’s market share in China now reaches 48%, and also offers a managed k8s service. Serverless tooling and approaches are gaining traction – OpenEvents, kubeless, fission are all things to watch out for.
