In a computing market constantly chasing more agile methods of deploying data, portable container technologies have become the lynchpin in enterprise multicloud strategy with the Kubernetes container orchestration at the helm. Boasting historic growth and popularity among leading cloud vendors, the relatively young technology is proving fundamental within a market transforming as a result of the freedom and experimentation it has enabled.

As a shift in favor of hybrid cloud computing prompts cloud leaders to prioritize Kubernetes and, more directly, leverage its capabilities, how will its standardization and widening adoption transform the open-source tool? Moreso, how will Kubernetes continue to transform the market at large?

Looking to answer these and other questions, SiliconANGLE is at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2018, currently underway in Seattle, Washington, with exclusive commentary and interviews from our roving news desk, theCUBE. TheCUBE coverage will begin at 10:30 a.m. PST Tuesday, Dec. 11, and end at 3:30 pm. Thursday, Dec. 13.

Kubernetes continues to hold its position as leader in container orchestration, with commitment to the tool jumping from 48 to 77 percent over the past year. As its adoption scales, so does Kubernetes’ impact on a software development market rapidly evolving, thanks to the low-risk experimentation it enables.

Beyond efficiency and innovation, businesses are finding containers also benefit the bottom line. A recent survey revealed 44 percent of enterprises plan to exchange some of their virtual machines for containers in an effort to save on costly licensing fees.

With its omnipresence in the market, Kubernetes will likely absorb the virtual machine exodus — and pass its earnings on to the cloud providers working hastily to streamline integrations with the orchestration tool.

“Kubernetes becomes part of ‘the platform,’” said Stu Miniman, an analyst with Wikibon, SiliconANGLE Media’s sister market research company. “Whatever cloud or infrastructure a customer uses is likely to have Kubernetes support. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, VMware, Red Hat and dozens of other companies are fully Kubernetes-compliant.”

With the emergence of hybrid cloud as a versatile solution to the challenges of moving data between public clouds and on-premises servers, major vendors are increasingly relying on container technology to facilitate orchestration between disparate environments. In November, Cisco Systems Inc. and Amazon Web Services Inc. partnered to create a platform that aims to simplify management of cloud and on-prem container environments for enterprise customers.

Cloud infrastructure leader Amazon Web Service Inc. continues to evolve its Kubernetes support offerings through AWS Marketplace expansions that allow streamlined purchase and deployment of container products for Amazon Elastic Container Service and Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes. At November’s AWS re:Invent conference, the company also announced a buildout of its customer success initiative, the AWS Competency Program, that includes Container Competency for Amazon ECS and Amazon ECS for Kubernetes.

IBM’s $34 billion Red Hat Inc. acquisition is a significant grab for hybrid cloud via the open-source provider’s direct line to Kubernetes, as well as a palpable transfer of power from monolithic processes to that of microservices.

“IBM was struggling with its execution,” said Dave Vellante, an analyst with Wikibon. “Their hybrid cloud strategy was limited because they didn’t really have strong developer mojo.”

Red Hat and OpenShift, a family of containerization software developed by Red Hat, give IBM valuable access to the developers architecting enterprise hybrid cloud in exchange for the global reach the legacy player will ideally provide. But to ensure mutual success, IBM must allow Red Hat to retain the open-source ethos that has gained it so much favor in the developer community, according to Miniman.

“IBM [will be] credible in the open-source space if they can let Red Hat still do their thing,” Miniman said. “Does IBM plus Red Hat make them a top leader in this hybrid multicloud world? Absolutely.”

Will Kubernetes maintain its core as it is further adopted and integrated with new technologies through these large-scale utilizations? How will its evolution change the course of hybrid cloud and the sphere of developing tools it supports? All this and more will be explored at this year’s KubeCon + CloudNativeCon.

Keynote speakers at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon include Kelsey Hightower, staff developer advocate, Google; Brian Grant, Kubernetes lead architect, Google; Brandon Philips, co-founder and chief technology officer of CoreOS at Red Hat; Celina Ward, software engineer, Uber; Clayton Coleman, architect, Kubernetes and OpenShift, Red Hat; Janet Kuo, software engineer, Google Cloud; Julia Evans, software engineer, Stripe; Karen Chu, community manager, Azure; Liz Rice, technology evangelist, container security specialists, Aqua Security; Matt Butcher, principal software engineer, Microsoft; Matt Schallert, site reliability engineer, Uber; Melanie Cebula, software engineer, Airbnb; and Xiang Li, senior staff engineer, Alibaba.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch all of theCUBE interviews that will be taking place at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s event on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE’s dedicated website and Ustream

All of theCUBE’s exclusive interviews from KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2018 will be available on theCUBE’s dedicated website.

You can also watch all the interviews on the dedicated Ustream channel.

Watch on the SiliconANGLE YouTube channel

All of theCUBE interviews from KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, which runs from June 20-21, will also be loaded onto SiliconANGLE’s dedicated YouTube channel.

Cubecasts

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on both SoundCloud and iTunes, which you can enjoy while on the go.

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE at the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE include KubeCon + CloudNativeCon keynote speakers Kelsey Hightower and Liz Rice.

Other guests include Chris Aniszczyk, chief technology officer and chief operations officer, CNCF; Ashesh Badani, vice president and general manager, cloud platforms, Red Hat; Chris Rosen, program director, IBM Kubernetes Service & IBM Container Registry; Lew Tucker, vice president and chief technology officer; cloud computing, Cisco; Greg Muscarella, vice president, products, Nutanix; and Joe Beda chief technology officer and co-founder, Heptio.

TheCUBE’s lineup also includes Daniel Berg, distinguished engineer, IBM Kubernetes Service, IBM; William Oliver, product manager, serverless, Red Hat; Jason McGee, IBM Fellow, vice president and chief technology officer, Cloud Platform, Foundation Services Tribe Leader; Jonsi Stefansson, chief technology officer and vice president of cloud services, NetApp; and David Aronchick, head of open source machine learning strategy, Azure, Microsoft, among many other guests.

To check out the complete lineup of guests appearing on theCUBE during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, visit theCUBE’s event page.

Livestream of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon

If you are unable to attend the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event in Seattle, you can register for event livestreams here.

(* Disclosure: Some segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE are sponsored. Sponsors have no editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Image: TheCUBE