News

1. Kubernetes users are using significantly more services that are "cloud-managed".

- Cloud-managed services have been growing significantly for 2 years now.
   They are absolutely popular in the IT world.

Kubernetes is the leading platform for managing containers. However, this also creates new challenges - you need to understand Kubernetes or be able to manage their Kubernetes environment. That's where cloud-managed services have their advantage. They offer quite high availability, scalability and flexibility. All this is taken care of by the cloud provider.
They also offer additional services such as

• Support for multiple cloud environments (Google, AWS, MS Azure).
• A fairly simple way to add additional nodes or scale the CPU as well as memory to your own liking.
• Monitoring solutions that can be integrated into your own processes

2. Edge area

Kubernetes may have gained popularity as an operating system for the data center, but its true value lies at the edge, where its portable and stable application workloads enable a nearly infinite variety of digital business processes and customer experiences.

Research shows that approximately 35% of production Kubernetes users are deploying Kubernetes at the edge, and many more plan to do so in the next 12 -24 months. The use cases are incredibly diverse, from drones picking fruit to artificial intelligence in MRI machines.
But the challenges are also immense, from manageability to security. The year 2023 is the tipping point where the challenges will be addressed head-on and edge will truly become mainstream.

Kubernetes networking trends are driven by IoT and edge computing.

3. Security is no longer a"nice to have“

When a technology leaves the playground / test bed and is deployed in-depth in production, it is no longer okay if it is untrustworthy, unstable, and most importantly, insecure.

In 2023, security will be at the top of the list of customers adopting cloud-native, and their wish list will be very long indeed.
Then there's the security of Kubernetes and the "full stack" that makes up the cluster: This includes everything from hardened distros to zero-trust access controls, as well as a detailed examination and critique of conventional practices such as the use of namespaces for isolation and core manageability requirements such as security scanning and the ability to patch multiple clusters immediately.

We expect the edge space to be a major focus for many because that's where all the security issues become more difficult. How do you patch ten thousand single-node edge clusters without physical access? How can you protect those devices against physical tampering?

4. Cost control

The days of commissioning new clusters and adding new experimental tools to the stack are over. TCO now needs to be considered in a focused way. Enterprise platform teams are expected to have a complete view of their total K8s costs, including cloud costs across multi-cloud. Tools such as "Kubecost" or "Vantage" are becoming increasingly important.

5. New paradigms

New areas such as virtual clusters are being sought to reduce costs without ignoring security. The operating costs of Kubernetes are coming more and more under scrutiny. Especially when it comes to hardware costs or bare metal overhead. Products like "Kubevirt" will experience a boom in the market. Virtual VMs within a Kubernetes cluster will become interesting alternatives, especially for DevOps teams.

6. Serverless

This will continue to be an issue in 2023, especially for large enterprises. Many companies run huge amounts of different applications that have grown over the years. The biggest problem is the complexity and therefore also the difficulty of transforming them into the cloud. That's where serverless comes in. The cloud providers take over the complete administration (managed service). Companies can concentrate on their applications.

The high level of security offered by serverless computing and the low maintenance requirements increase the acceptance of this technology.

According to surveys, the global market for serverless computing is expected to have an annual growth rate of 22% in the next 5 years (Source: Serverless-computing-market)

7. Kubernetes talents

Is there anything more popular than Kubernetes itself?

The answer is quite clearly "Kubernetes knowledge".

In the industry, no one really wants to hear about "talent shortage", no one really dares to come out with the truth. People would like not to alienate potential customers and not to leave the potential revenue / profit to the competition.

But in the foreseeable future, there will be a very high demand (which is actually already today) for cloud-native skills. This is especially true in the Kubernetes - field.

The SVP / GM in Training / Certification from the Linux Foundation sees no signs that the demand for Kubernetes - knowledge is slowing down. Kubernetes is taking on an important role in enterprises today, and it requires the appropriate personnel.

In 2023, we will once again innovate to try to develop this expertise.

Especially since currently good personnel can only be lured away from the competition with ever higher salaries. This skills gap is particularly noticeable when you are working in the government sector.

8. Cloud Sustainability

According to a recent cloud research report (colt.net), sustainability is a key and important criterion for around 74% of enterprise IT decision-makers when designing their cloud strategies. As a result, the so-called hyperscale cloud providers - Microsoft, Amazon and Google - have all committed to decarbonizing their data centers. Sustainability can only succeed if we work together.

Cloud / Kubernetes Monitoring

Container or cloud environments can become very complex and therefore require constant monitoring to ensure the health of their components. Without proper monitoring, cloud environments can become unsafe or inefficient, which can lead to very costly outages. Over the last 2-3 years, containers have multiplied, making the management of these small entities increasingly complex.

However, properly deployed monitoring also helps organizations maintain a secure environment by detecting if malicious activity is taking place in their containers. There are now a variety of monitoring solution providers. Examples include Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger, EFK-Stack, and others.

9. Multi-Cluster Kubernetes

Using a single Kubernetes control plane to manage more than one node cluster has been practiced for years. This is known as multi-cluster Kubernetes or Kubernetes Federation.

However, in the last 2 years, the tools needed to manage it have evolved so well that these multi-cluster deployments now have real opportunities.

These advancements mean that the tools can now overcome the rather high technical hurdles. An example of this would be managing network connections so that communication between the different clusters is smooth, but also ensures the necessary security in the environment. Network security is one of the top priorities for Kubernetes.

Kubernetes with multiple clusters is important because it provides the ability to separate workloads not just by namespaces, but by completely different clusters. This gives you significantly more options. Therefore, Kubernetes with multiple clusters is better suited for use cases where very strict security requirements apply. The use of Kubernetes does not protect against the failure of the data center or a cloud provider. That's where multi-cloud comes in.

Author: Ralf Menti