With Kubernetes and its ecosystem such a central and standard technology in cloud computing today, a common thread in talking with vendors at the event is allowing non-containerized workloads to run in the Kubernetes environment. This report covers some of the highlights from KubeCon Amsterdam 2023.

Omdia view

Summary

Kubernetes was the first Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) project to achieve graduate status in 2018; the question is whether it is now a mature solution, and the view from KubeCon Amsterdam is that it is. Omdia delves into what that means and the implications. With Kubernetes and its ecosystem such a central and standard technology in cloud computing today, a common thread in talking with vendors at the event is allowing non-containerized workloads to run in the Kubernetes environment. This report covers some of the highlights of KubeCon Amsterdam 2023.

The maturity of Kubernetes

For a product to be called mature, there should be no awkward gaps in the essentials feature set, and the software should be robust. Within cloud native computing, Kubernetes is now a standard technology that the computing community as a whole is working with – from the cloud hyperscalers to the many consumers of IT. The view from the event end-user panel (analyst and press stream) was that while Kubernetes continues to evolve, it has reached a maturity point by being the standard for allocation of compute in a digital world, and the level of maturity can be seen by the use cases being deployed that were unexpected because it was a brand new technology. Examples given were low orbit satellites and jet fighter control systems running Kubernetes and replacing safety-critical systems such as human-critical radiation monitoring and cryogenic controls with Kubernetes-based solutions, all of which indicate the technology’s stability.