As the cloud native computing world prepares to gather in Los Angeles for a mixed virtual and in-person KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event, the conference tag of “Resilience Realized” has taken on special meaning. 

The tech industry was essentially thrown into the breach in 2020 when a global pandemic closed most businesses and the world shifted to online platforms for survival. This placed tremendous pressure on developers and the open-source community to provide critical tools for meeting public health and e-commerce needs in a time of crisis.

“The community is tired, and it’s been a long two years,” Constance Caramanolis, principal engineer at Splunk Inc. and co-chair of the KubeCon event, said during an interview with SiliconANGLE (see full video at bottom of article). “There’s still been amazing collaboration. I am seeing so many projects with the tag ‘observability’ collaborate together and make that a focus. We are pretty resilient.”

The current landscape for open-source, Kubernetes and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation will be the focus of discussion at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2021, Oct. 13-15. TheCUBE’s coverage begins at 11 a.m. PDT on Oct. 13 and runs through 4 p.m. on Oct. 15. Coverage will include interviews with members of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, company executives and technology thought leaders, focusing on open-source developments, cloud native trends, the evolving role of security, and continued use of Kubernetes by large-scale enterprises. (* Disclosure below.)

Supply chain concerns

One byproduct of the pandemic has been an increase in both the attack surface and security vulnerabilities. This was brought into sharp focus late last year when a compromise of the software supply chain came to light through a breach of security vendor SolarWinds.

The hack, which has been attributed to Russian operatives, resulted in the spread of a hidden virus to 18,000 government and private networks. Nearly one year later, repairing the damage caused by the breach continues.

Compromises such as SolarWinds have raised the level of security awareness for enterprises and the open-source community. Container security has received particular attention from various groups, including the National Security Agency. In June, Red Hat Inc. released a report which revealed that 94% of DevOps and engineering professionals confirmed they had experienced a security incident related to containers.

“There’s not a week that passes that I don’t have a chat with someone around what’s happening in security,” said Stephen Augustus, head of open source at Cisco Systems Inc. and co-chair of the KubeCon event, during an interview with SiliconANGLE. “There’s not one, not two, but three keynotes around software supply chain security. It’s paramount for us to make sure that everything we’re pushing out to the community and the wider world is safe to consume.”

Kubernetes at the edge

In addition to security, another key topic at this year’s KubeCon North America gathering will likely involve edge computing as it relates to the open hybrid cloud.

In a blog post last year, Red Hat Chief Executive Paul Cormier outlined a position that for edge computing to be successful, it will need open source and the hybrid cloud to thrive. Cormier’s point is that consistency in automation and management of edge platforms will be essential given the number of devices involved, which calls for a common open-source driven standard.

Red Hat has been working in the edge space to develop a single-node solution for OpenShift, its enterprise-ready Kubernetes container platform. The concept is to make the OpenShift footprint smaller to fit into confined spaces or environments where network connectivity back to a datacenter may be intermittent.

“One of the biggest trends here is how Kubernetes gets out to the edge even more,” Stu Miniman, director of market insights for cloud platforms at Red Hat, said during an interview with SiliconANGLE. “Something that you’re going to see us talking about more at KubeCon is single node OpenShift.”

Cloud-native popularity

Large-scale migration to the cloud, accelerated as a result of the pandemic, has created a next wave of natively built applications. Enterprises have come to embrace cloud-native solutions more extensively, while taking advantage of fully managed service models to maintain apps and the supporting infrastructure.

A scan of tech-related headlines just over the past month shows a lengthy list of companies unveiling cloud-native solutions, from Nokia and VMware to Mirantis, Ericsson and Honeywell. The spotlight on cloud-native has never shown brighter, which sets the stage for this month’s annual KubeCon gathering to receive a great deal of attention.

Conference organizers have been mindful about reminding participants that the focus is still grounded in the communal model set by the open-source world.

“This conference is built by the community,” Augustus said. “It’s the maintainers, it’s the end users, it’s the students, it’s people who have never used Kubernetes in their lives. Be curious and question everything. We’re all here to learn and grow.”

Livestream of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2021

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2021 is an in-person and livestream event, with additional interviews to be broadcasted on theCUBE. You can register for the event here. Plus, you can watch theCUBE’s event coverage of the event here.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch theCUBE’s coverage of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2021, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

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

Guests

Stay tuned for a complete list of guests who will appear on theCUBE. Watch Constance Caramanolis’ complete interview below, joined by Stephen Augustus, head of open source at Cisco and a featured speaker at this year’s event.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2021. Neither Red Hat nor the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, the sponsors for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE