The pandemic has brought cloud native into the mainstream, accelerating the adoption of digital business across industries and in businesses from neighborhood mom-and-pop stores to global mega-corporations. It’s more than a surface change; companies that traditionally identified as part of the automotive, transportation or even finance industries now have software as their core.

“The dynamics have really changed,” said Brian Gracely, senior director of product strategy at Red Hat Inc. OpenShift. “[Enterprise] has looked at Silicon Valley for years, and now they’re modeling it … it is really, really interesting in terms of how far that whole software is eating the world thing is materialized in every industry.”

RedHat Inc.’s State of Enterprise Open Source report has charted the steady rise of open source software use in the enterprise. Out of the information technology leaders surveyed for the 2021 report, 90% report adopting open source software for their business, with most use around the key areas of infrastructure modernization, application development, and digital transformation.

“Open-source is such a huge cornerstone of technology today,” Lars Cromley, Technology Fellow, Deloitte Consulting LLP told theCUBE. “Open-source is in the DNA of the modern internet.”

From May 4-7, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s flagship conference, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe, will virtually host adopters and technologists from leading open-source and cloud native communities. During the event, theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio will discuss the enterprise IT infrastructure, Kubernetes, open source and the advancement of cloud native computing. (* Disclosure below.)

“This virtual event provides a great opportunity to learn more about what projects and problems different regions are focusing on,” said Constance Caramanolis, principal software engineer at Splunk Inc. “We often forget that technology is strongly impacted by location, and this year’s event provides unique exposure without the airfare and hotel costs. Also, the happy hour sessions are a great way to simulate the infamous hallway track.”

Watch the complete interview with Brian Gracely below:

Open source keeps pace with the speed of global change

At the center of this call to cloud native is the open-source community. And at the center of the community is the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, home to container-orchestration system Kubernetes. It’s fair to say that without containers, there would not be cloud. And it’s Kubernetes that has become the poster child for mainstream adoption of cloud computing technology.

Ninety-three percent of respondents to the “CNCF Survey 2020” said they use containers in production, with 83% specifying Kubernetes usage. This marks a 300% increase in container adoption over the five years the foundation has been tracking usage stats.

“Since its introduction, Kubernetes has opened up new doors for enterprise developers building for the cloud. For developers who are charged with rapidly innovating and building applications that enable digital transformation, open-source container platforms, such as Kubernetes, can help reduce vendor lock-in and make it easier for teams to move applications from one environment to another,” Jason McGee, vice-president and chief technical officer of IBM Cloud at IBM, told theCUBE in a statement explaining the benefits of the technology to enterprise.

Kubernetes brought enterprise to open source, but with 21 releases under its belt, the “shiny new” has started to wear off and end users are exploring the wider world of cloud native innovation. When it comes to open source, “classic enterprise end-user participation is at an all-time high,” according to John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE Media Inc. and host of theCUBE. This validates the ongoing success of the CNCF’s mission “to make cloud native computing ubiquitous.”

“This choice to be on open source is a choice to move at the pace of global innovation,” Hillery Hunter, vice president and chief technology officer of IBM Cloud at IBM, told theCUBE during this week’s Red Hat Summit. “It’s a choice to leverage capabilities that are portable, and it’s a choice to have flexibility in deployment.”

In the past year, market conditions have swung rapidly from ramp-up to shut-down. Agility is the new “must have” attribute to survive in the constantly shifting environment, according to 87% of respondents in an April 2021 global survey sponsored by the BizOps Coalition. Only open source, with its associated ethos of fast, fair, strong, clear, scalable and platform agnostic, can keep up.

Enterprise joins ‘Team Cloud Native’

Adopting technology is one thing; switching from a static timeline of set milestones to the free-wheeling, fast and flexible world of open-source is another.

“[Enterprises] have got great technology chops, but they don’t always understand the nuances and the dynamics of open source. They’re used to having their own proprietary internal stuff,” Gracely told theCUBE in an interview earlier this week.

With over 145 end-user members at the close of 2020, the CNCF has the largest end-user participation of any open-source foundation. And it continues to grow.

Companies often approach Red Hat for advice, not for technological adoption, but for how to be good stewards in the open-source community, according to Gracely. They ask: “How do we set up our own internal open-source office and have that group work with communities?” he said.

While Red Hat and all other CNCF members are happy to share experiences and best practices with newcomers, there’s nothing like hanging out with friends and geeking out on all things open and cloud native. This is why the CNCF encourages the entire community to get together whenever and however it can. 

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon is held twice each year – North America and in Europe. This year’s European conference is open for virtual attendance.

End-user viewpoint is essential for innovation

Thanks to the pandemic, the demographic of attendees may be less developer skewed than in the past, with “a ton of new companies and contributors” entering the community thanks to the COVID pandemic’s push toward remote operations. This means the focus of the event will be less on the “Kube” and more on the “CloudNative,” with the end-user perspective brought to the forefront.

Another growth area is the number of new projects that have been created. 

“A thousand flowers are blooming, and we’re going to see probably a half dozen or so new communities come out of this one really strong, and you know the trends around those are going to accelerate,” Gracely predicted.

Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and input from end users on their problems that need solving and potential new use cases help steer innovation in the right direction. No matter how cool a project may be, if it doesn’t meet a market need then adoption will be slow to non-existent. At KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America in December 2020, 45% of attendees were end users and 31% of the sessions came from end-user companies. This year’s European event could beat that, showing that the end user is now center place in the open-source conversation.

“Before adopting a project, end users investigate functionalities, roadmap, active contributions and use cases from peer organizations. This due diligence process equips them with valuable feedback for projects that define the organic growth of the ecosystem,” Katie Gamanji, ecosystem advocate for the CNCF, told theCUBE. “KubeCon + CloudNativeCon is a great medium for end-user practitioners to share, explore and learn emerging trends and connect with the wider community.”

Livestream of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe is a livestream event, with additional interviews to be broadcasted on theCUBE. You can register for free here to access the live event. Plus, you can watch theCUBE interviews here on demand after the live event.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch the live coverage of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe, 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

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe include Ricardo Rocha, computing engineer at CERN; Jasmine James, manager of engineering effectiveness at Twitter; Stephen Augustus, head of open source at Cisco Systems; Ali Golshan, senior director of global software engineering at Red Hat; James Labocki, senior director of product management at Red Hat; and Ruchir Puri, IBM fellow and chief scientist of IBM Research at IBM.

Visit thecube.net for a complete list of speakers.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe. Neither Red Hat Inc. or 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