During this week’s KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event in Amsterdam, the enterprise technology community gathered to discuss the latest developments in Kubernetes and the evolving role of DevOps in modern cloud-native platforms.

“DevOps is dead — long live the platform,” said Murli Thirumale (pictured), vice president and general manager of the Cloud-Native Business Unit at Pure Storage Inc. “In fact, it speaks to not so much the demise of DevOps, but the success of DevOps … giving rise to platform engineering.”

Platform engineering, which aims to provide a self-service model for developers by embracing cloud-native technologies that are anchored in Kubernetes, has effectively replaced middleware with a self-service model for developers, according to Thirumale. In his words, “Platform engineering is the new middleware.”

Thirumale spoke with industry analysts John Furrier and Rob Strechay at the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the emergence of platform engineering. (* Disclosure below.)

As-a-service offerings and AI reshape enterprise operations

As the number of developers and applications continues to grow, complexity of the platforms they work with also grows. To deal with this, many enterprises are now looking for as-a-service platforms to simplify operations and reduce the need for in-house Kubernetes expertise. Companies like Portworx have responded by offering backup as a service and Portworx Data Services, which provide a range of data services with a one-click interface, according to Thirumale.

“All you have to do is take your containers, plug in our PDS service into it,” he explained. “Platform engineering, operating a platform is now as simple as collating all these services, as opposed to actually running them yourself.”

Another topic buzzing throughout KubeCon is the role of artificial intelligence in the development and management of Kubernetes platforms. While AI might not replace humans or turn them into superhumans, it can be a strong aid in certain situations, according to Thirumale.

“I think you can use ChatGPT in a couple of different ways. One of them is to supplement a human … to either confirm or deny a hypothesis,” he stated.

There’s also the potential for AI to be used in very specific, data-driven scenarios, such as generating test cases for new capabilities. In these instances, AI could prove to be a valuable tool for developers and platform engineering teams alike, Thirumale added.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe event:

(* Disclosure: Portworx by Pure Storage sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Portworx nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE