Kubernetes has reached a pivotal moment in its 10-year history, a milestone celebrated throughout the entirety of this year’s KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe.

Its ubiquity has brought the open-source container management system into the mainstream, delivering new opportunities to meet the challenges of the artificial intelligence era. As the developer community has watched the Kubernetes ecosystem mature, this year’s KubeCon was expected to focus on deployment use cases and provide a chance to see developments as projects moved from the sandbox phase to incubating and eventually graduation. Those opportunities were a central focus for our analysts, reporting onsite.

“I was overwhelmed by the floor here. I just spent the last hour [at] three booths and had three very long conversations about very interesting stuff that I didn’t even realize was going on underneath the hood in some of these projects,” said theCUBE Research industry analyst Rob Strechay (pictured, right) as the show was drawing to a close. “I think that … one of the keys is that the amount of projects that are going on is just massive.”

During the event, analysts for theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, spoke with industry professionals about what comes next. They explored use cases in cloud-native computing trends and how cloud-native computing impacts the emerging world of intelligent data apps. (* Disclosure below.)

Here are three key insights you may have missed from the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe event:

1. Kubernetes is maturing into a cloud-native powerhouse.

As KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe kicked off, it became clear to many that Kubernetes could be in the midst of having its Linux moment. From a show atmosphere perspective, many were leaning into how they were helping build communities, according to Strechay.

“We had Dynatrace on earlier today, and they were talking about how they’ve actually built a secure distribution of OpenTelemetry,” he said, as part of analysis of the first day of the event. “You don’t have to use it with Dynatrace; you can just use it. I think people [are] leaning in on that type of stuff.”

One of the interesting things about all of the AI and machine learning workloads being discussed has to do with the flexibility of Kubernetes as a platform, according to guest host Dustin Kirkland. Things have changed compared to where they were 10 years ago, he noted.

“Kubernetes was the sexiest way to run web apps and databases and moving off of some of the more closed-source platforms as a service, moving on to something that you could self-host, you can run in your own data center, you could run in a different cloud or some other cloud,” Kirkland said.

That was great for the RESTful web app, but things have changed, he added.

“That same system, also now working with GPUs, being able to timeshare and slice and stack workloads on those GPUs, all through a scheduled container … that’s pretty remarkable,” Kirkland stated.

The event was also a great chance to see virtual machines on Kubernetes, according to Strechay.

“It’s coming together in harmony with containers,” he said. “I think that it makes too much sense for that to not happen over time, where things come together, especially where certain things are just going to live better in a VM than they are in a container if they have not been written for a container.”

The energy and the buzz on the show floor was also noted by analysts, as was the sense that Kubernetes was the driving force behind cloud-native evolution. All told, it was very impressive, according to co-host Savannah Peterson (pictured, left).

“I think we’re reaching a new stage of maturity within the ecosystem as well,” she said. “It’s a lot less hype. Kubernetes is actually being deployed. I think the AI stack is actually driving a bit of that as well. I think we’re at a place where this isn’t just a project. People aren’t thinking about it; we’re actually implementing and seeing what that looks like.”

The show, however, is now more about the cloud-native side of things than Kubernetes, according to industry analyst Joep Piscaer. Kubernetes is now mature and people are now implementing it, which leads to a space that is more interesting, he noted.

“Even though I am an infrastructure engineer by my history, we’re looking at the developer, how to empower them, how to enable them to actually build something that makes sense for the business,” he said. “That’s what excites me in the show … actually having those conversations about what the developers need, what the business needs.”

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

2. Customization and community are shaping future tech.

On the show floor, one of the themes that resonated about Kubernetes was the power of customization and community in reshaping technology. That included Kubeflow, described as a transformative project under the CNCF umbrella.

Kubeflow aims to reshape workflows for data scientists and machine learning operations practitioners, according to Jeremy Eder, chief AI and machine learning strategist at Red Hat Inc. Given the open-source nature of the event, KubeCon + CloudNativeCloud Europe content was compelling, as feedback from customers has been a driving force in developing the technology.

“The sort of sea change moment for us was when it was donated to the CNCF … open source doesn’t mean open governance,” Eder said. “When we’re a vendor trying to sell something, open governance is critical from a risk management standpoint, so we got engaged after the trademarks and IP moved over. One of the things that makes CNCF so great and impactful to the ecosystem is risk management for vendors, and we also contribute as much as we get. It’s a symbiotic relationship in that way.”

Meanwhile, customization in platform engineering is being viewed as critical when it comes to aligning technology with organizational identity. There’s also a significant role here for community involvement and collaboration. The risks of cyberattacks are extremely high, which prompted several conversations during the event, including talks at BackstageCon.

“That’s why Backstage is successful — it is the ability to customize for your company,” said Balaji Sivasubramanian, senior director of product management and developer tools at Red Hat Inc. “If you’re able to customize the platform for you, that’s why developers can associate with it. It’s not only the colors and themes. It’s also what tools they can use, the templates, which are essentially the best practices for that organization can also be there.”

Here’s the complete video interview with Jeremy Eder and Jennifer Vargas, principal product marketing manager at Red Hat:

3. Open-source technologies can address critical challenges ahead.

The months ahead are fraught with challenges in the technology industry, but conversations at KubeCon EU highlighted the pivotal role of community engagement and technological advancement in solving those challenges. That included the view that it’s necessary to embrace and enhance open-source security.

“How do we help the community [member] who may not be a security expert but really wants to make sure that your code is secure or the providence is good?” asked Omkhar Arasaratnam, general manager of the Open Source Security Foundation at the Linux Foundation. “Those are our stakeholders. By engaging … we believe we can help improve the security of open-source software.”

Various companies also offered their views on solving the challenges ahead during interviews with theCUBE. That included Docker Inc., which hopes its Build Cloud and testing can give time back to developers.

“What used to take an hour is now a minute and a half,” said Scott Johnston, chief executive officer at Docker Inc. “It is giving time back for developers. You put more horsepower behind the build. We cache it, and that speeds it up as well.”

Meanwhile, for the CNCF, with 184 individual projects under its umbrella, there’s a goal to provide expanded training, certification and community growth efforts. CNCF has trained somewhere in the range of 200,000 to 300,000 people in its certifications, according to Chris Aniszczyk, chief technology officer of the CNCF.

“We’ve grown so much; we now have a lot more technology,” Aniszczyk said. “Outside of Kubernetes, we have OpenTelemetry. You need stuff to observe things you have; you need to secure things. We have Falco, so we’re basically investing a lot in helping build training and certification for those communities.”

Here’s the complete video interview with Omkhar Arasaratnam:

To watch more of theCUBE’s coverage of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’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. No sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE