Operators have arrived at KubeCon, signaling the transition of Kubernetes to a mature platform for money-making organizations.
Kubernetes is no longer just a science experiment used by fast-paced developers testing new ideas, most of which fail. He now backs successful projects that make money for small and giant companies. With profits and gains at stake, the other people are guilty of keeping the infrastructure alive (the operators) has come well and indeed to KubeCon.
In recent years, KubeCon has been governed by developers. While they remain a driving force of the conference, a rebalancing of sorts has taken place. More and more people are present in infrastructure and operations roles, looking for wisdom and equipment to care for. the boring but vital task of keeping systems online and running optimally.
Other, more experienced people are also present, with roles that span progression and operations. They take a more strategic view and seek data about systems, tools, and culture. Kubernetes isn’t your only focus, but it has a vital component of your portfolio. which demands attention and, most importantly, budget.
Serious stuff has come to KubeCon.
“Everyone figured out how to overtake fast. Nowadays, with external market forces, the most important thing is security and trust. How can you do that without losing speed?” said Sean Pratt, senior director of product marketing at JFrog.
Organizations don’t abandon their developers, far from it. Organizations are restructuring their groups to make progression a component of a larger whole. While techniques like Agile and DevOps were a reaction to bulky processes that prevented mandatory adjustments from occurring, they also created new silos. disconnected from vital business controls such as security and governance. The pendulum is now swinging away from that extreme.
“We haven’t lost sight of what makes developers more efficient. We’ve brought all the groups that want them into the same experience,” said David DeSanto, chief product officer at GitLab.
Whereas in the past developers had to comply with favored superseded business practices across operations, security, compliance, and more, the updated progression experience is now being transferred to those other teams. Practices like infrastructure-as-code use the same automation and collaboration techniques that developers have followed to become more efficient. Teams edit security policies and work brazenly on shared platforms like GitLab. Even HR in some corporations adheres to the open-source philosophy of transparency and collaboration.
Kubernetes, and the broader open-source ecosystem that surrounds it, is asking how, not if. The most innovative companies that followed Kubernetes from the beginning experimented and figured out what works and what doesn’t. Today, the first majority of the maximum established corporations are avoiding the tedious discovery procedure and simply adopting what has proven to be effective.
There is no “right” way to do things, as other companies have other needs. That’s why they come to KubeCon to be more informed about the features on offer. Previously, it was all about being informed of what might happen in the future, if those wild people and open-source enthusiasts turned out to be right. Now it’s a process of selection and variety, locating partners in the Kubernetes ecosystem to solve a customer’s problems. That Kubernetes will play a role is almost a given.
Interestingly, some are turning to projects like KubeVirt to consolidate their platforms. Rather than proceeding with separate silos, one for virtual machines and one for containers, there is a clear preference for unifying infrastructure on a single, privileged platform. Nervousness about Broadcom’s long-term execution of plans for VMware (assuming the acquisition is finalized) is part of that preference. Others simply see proprietary VM-centric platforms as a replaced technique that they will inevitably move away from. The question is how and when.
Enterprises now know more about what they need to achieve with Kubernetes and the economic impact it will have. Concrete business instances are being developed with attached budgets, budgets of large non-discretionary business units, and not optional R projects.
The price of Kubernetes is now clear. The focus is now on how KubeCon suppliers can capture some of that price in exchange for resolving real business disruptions.
Justin attended KubeCon CloudNativeCon as a member of the Linux Foundation.