As part of my role as a senior product marketing manager at an enterprise software company with an open source development model, I publish a regular update about open source community, market, and industry trends for product marketers, managers, and other influencers. Here are five of my and their favorite articles from that update.
16 Kubernetes experts share the most interesting current trends
Given its widespread (and growing) use, it’s no surprise that there are many evolving Kubernetes trends and best practices at present. For DevOps professionals, staying on top of the latest trends and learning emerging best practices for working with Kubernetes requires a commitment to ongoing education. (Check out our list of the 50 best Kubernetes tutorials for some useful learning resources.) DevOps pros should also keep Kubernetes security in mind, and build security into the development cycle as early as possible. To measure your organization’s security maturity level and learn more about how Threat Stack can secure your containerized environments, take Threat Stack’s Cloud SecOps Maturity Assessment.
To find out what Kubernetes trends are piquing interest in the DevOps community at present, we reached out to a panel of DevOps pros and Kubernetes experts and asked them to answer this question: “What are the most interesting trends to look for in Kubernetes right now?”
The impact: I think the hiring managers at companies struggling to get up and running with Kubernetes will be happy to know there are at least 16 Kubernetes experts in the world. With a technology that is changing this fast, there is a certain amount of "figuring it out as we go" that is happening. In other words, if you're reading this and really want to, there is a pretty good chance you could be the 17th expert being polled next time round.
How Quarkus brings Java into the modern world of enterprise tech
[When] starting a new Java application it can be easier to find third-party components or entire systems that can help the developer gain productivity advancements over other languages that have not yet grown to have the breadth and depth of the Java ecosystem. Using a full-stack framework such as Quarkus, and taking advantage of libraries that use Java, such as Eclipse MicroProfile and Eclipse Vert.x, makes this easier, and also encourages the use of different combinations of tools and dependencies. With Quarkus in particular, it also includes an extension framework that third party authors can use to build native executables and expand the functionality of Java in the enterprise. Quarkus not only brings Java into the modern world of containers, but it also does so quickly with short start-up times.
The impact: On the one hand, the author of this post has a lot to gain by making this true. On the other hand, so do a lot of people / companies / organizations. I wouldn't bet against the manifestation of cloud-native Java through a combination of hard work and "if I say this loud enough and long enough"...
Istio 1.3: What's new, what's coming
Istio is an open source service mesh that enables developers to “connect, secure, control, and observe services.” Spearheaded by Google, IBM and Lyft, Istio is a collaborative initiative meant to solve operational hurdles associated with distributed microservices development.
Many of the new changes focus on extensibility. As Lin says, developers shouldn’t feel trapped within the confines of Istio. To that end, they’ve made changes to meet developer expectations by introducing the following features:
The impact: To me, an extensibility-focused release means that Istio developers are starting to feel pretty good about what's "within the confines of Istio." Congrats to them on the release!
Choosing the right cloud container platform
Choosing a container platform is like looking for furniture in IKEA. Each of the many options and alternatives provide slightly different form and function, and one might be more suitable for a business than another.
What is important for every enterprise, however, is that a platform is integrated, secure, updated regularly, and has room for configuration, appropriate to the business, without compromising operational functionality or security. Looking at the characteristics we have described here will help you make the right choice.
The impact: Once you know your constraints, you want the flexibility to choose the best way to deliver your outcome within them. This article has a helpful articulation of the relevant constraints that may apply to someone trying to figure out where they'll run their containers and some advice on how to think through the tradeoffs involved in choosing.
Eclipse Che 7 strengthens the link between Java and Kubernetes
"With Che 7, everything a cloud native developer needs—including the IDE, its plugins, and their dependencies—is running as a Kubernetes application, so everything becomes repeatable and reproducible," said Brad Micklea, vice president of Red Hat's Developer Tools and Programs group, in a statement, "whereas before development teams had to spend a non-trivial amount of time building and maintaining developer environments. Now developers can more quickly spin up a development environment in Kubernetes that mirrors a production application, and Che will take care of adding the development, build and debugging tools needed for them. Anyone, anytime, can contribute to a project without installing software, thus enabling faster application development from a more secure, centrally hosted environment."
The impact: One thing I hear a lot is that the fight for the heart of the developer is being fought on the battleground of convenience. I also hear about individual development workflows and configurations that have been honed and perfected over decades. I can't wait to see which proves stronger: convenience or familiarity.
I hope you enjoyed this list of what stood out to me from last week and come back next Monday for more open source community, market, and industry trends.
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