UPDATED 09:00 EDT / JUNE 05 2022

CLOUD

Three insights you might have missed from KubeCon + CloudNativeCon EU

If there has been a slowdown in the rush to build new technologies for the Kubernetes and cloud-native world, there wasn’t any sign of it in Valencia, Spain, during the recent KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe event.

The show was a sellout this year, with more than 7,500 attendees. Perhaps even more significant was that 65% of them attended the gathering for the first time. Attendees included a portion of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s 7.1 million cloud-native developers, who gathered to hear the latest on the non-profit’s more than 120 active projects.

TheCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, covered this year’s KubeCon EU event through exclusive interviews with industry executives, open-source users and technology thought leaders. (* Disclosure below.)

Here are three insights you might have missed during the event:

1. The CNCF has a message: It’s not just where big companies come to play.

The rising popularity of cloud-native and increasing participation by some of the world’s largest tech companies has led to a perception that the influential CNCF is where big firms dominate. Priyanka Sharma (pictured), the foundation’s executive director, who took over the helm from the late Dan Kohn in 2020, would like to change this impression.

It’s understandable how this perception has developed. Major tech firms support the work of CNCF both financially and in coding contributions from company developers for key projects. Larger firms are often at the center of CNCF’s coverage in the media. Google LLC’s initial reluctance in 2020 to transfer control of the Istio service mesh project to CNCF sparked well-publicized counter measures from firms such as IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. Google ultimately submitted the project in April.

CNCF also had to maneuver carefully around attempts by the U.S. government to isolate member company Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., after Facebook, Google and Arm Ltd. expressed reluctance to share technology.

Despite the visibility of high-profile member companies, the CNCF has been steadfast in providing an open door for smaller firms seeking to participate in Sandbox-level projects, as emphasized by Sharma in her interview with theCUBE during the KubeCon event.

“I really want to change this narrative,” Sharma said. “It’s easy to apply; there’s a mass vote to get you in. We’ve become an enabler for the small projects, and everybody should know that.”

Here’s the complete video interview with Priyanka Sharma:

2. Red Hat’s acquisition of StackRox turbo-charged development of cloud-native security tools.

When Red Hat Inc. acquired software security firm StackRox Inc. in 2021, the company announced that it would donate the startup’s Kubernetes offerings to the open-source community and build them into OpenShift. Eighteen months later, the impact of these tools is being felt across the security ecosystem.

StackRox had previously released KubeLinter, a static analysis tool to identify misconfigurations in Kubernetes deployments, prior to the acquisition. The tool now has approximately 2,000 stars on GitHub, a favorable indication of developer interest and use.

StackRox leveraged the open-source runtime analysis tool Falco early on, and Falco now has over 45 million downloads. Red Hat has also integrated a number of key open-source security tools into OpenShift, including Security-Enhanced Linux, or SELinux.

Red Hat’s strategy with StackRox has resulted in a Kubernetes-native security platform that differentiates itself in a crowded security market.

“It’s sort of that orchestration of orchestrators,” said Kirsten Newcomer, director of cloud and DevSecOps strategy at Red Hat, in an interview with theCUBE. “Leveraging the Kubernetes operator principle to deliver an opinionated Kubernetes platform has been one of the key things we’ve done. We continue to expand the security capabilities that we provide, which is one of the reasons the acquisition of StackRox was so important to us.”

Here’s the complete video interview with Kirsten Newcomer and Red Hat’s Connor Gorman:

3. The ‘next big thing’ in enterprise tech could be WebAssembly.

It’s been called the “cute little VM” that enables a secure and speedy edge, and WebAssembly, known as WASM, is generating buzz.

The technology was developed by the World Wide Web Consortium and initially published in 2018. It allows developers to import their own code, and WebAssembly will compile and execute it on a web browser at high speed. It has emerged as a rapid, scalable and secure way to run code across machines, and it has begun to power the world’s most complex applications, including major streaming platforms such as Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.

A good example of WebAssembly’s growing impact can be seen in the case of online retailing giant Shopify Inc. Using the open-source native compiler tool Lucet with WebAssembly, Shopify was able to run a flash sale with 120,000 modules spinning up and executing in a 60-second window while maintaining superior runtime performance.

“Shopify is a big believer in WebAssembly because while their platform covers two standard deviations or 80% of the use cases, they have a wonderful marketplace of extensions that folks can use in order to customize the checkout process or apply specialized discounts or integrate into a partner ecosystem,” said Liam Randall, chair of the CNCF Cloud Native WebAssembly Day and chief executive officer of Cosmonic Corp., during a conversation with theCUBE in Spain. “They line up to the same requirements that we have in browsers and servers. I firmly believe that WebAssembly represents the next epic of tech.”

Here’s the complete video interview with Liam Randall, as well as Adobe Inc.’s Colin Murphy:

To watch more of theCUBE’s coverage of the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe event, here’s our complete event video playlist:

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

Photo: SiliconANGLE

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU