Kubernetes Trends for 2020

Kubernetes has become the standard for container orchestration, with all major technology giants supporting the project via the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). In 2019, 40% of the companies surveyed by the CNCF were using Kubernetes in production, while 87% were using container orchestration solutions.

The large and active Kubernetes community constantly releases new features and integrations. The number of Kubernetes service providers is growing by the day, reaching 100 in 2019. Kubernetes is in constant evolution, and it is expected to continue growing and diversifying in 2020. Read on to learn what are the top Kubernetes trends we may see in 2020.

Kubernetes in a Nutshell

Kubernetes, or k8s, is an open-source container orchestration platform for automating containerized applications. The platform automates otherwise manual processes for deploying, managing and scaling containers.

Kubernetes provides companies with a way to manage large amounts of containers. The platform schedules and runs containers in clusters. One of the main benefits of Kubernetes is its flexibility, which enables you to run the platform in almost any environment, from on-premises to the public cloud. Other benefits of running Kubernetes include:

• Velocity — Kubernetes enables high velocity, by running updates without downtime. Velocity is measured by the number of shipments per hour while maintaining high availability.
• Immutability — many components such as containers, are immutable. If you want to update the application, you build a new container image, and release a new container. You can learn more about container images in this guide.
• Self-healing — Kubernetes tries to maintain the current desired state configuration at any time. This involves monitoring and replacing unhealthy containers and pods to match the desired state.
• Scalability — k8s makes it easy to scale your workload up or down by adding or eliminating pods. Kubernetes enables autoscaling, which means that you only need to set the number range of nodes you want in the cluster and the platform takes care of the rest.

5 Kubernetes Trends for 2020

1. Market growth due to new players

Kubernetes is currently the most popular container orchestration solution. Other open source systems, such as Apache Mesos are closing the gap. While k8s is often the go-to solution for container orchestration, it is also complex and difficult to configure.

These challenges have created a gap for new solutions, which is slowly being filled by Kubernetes features and third-party managed services. As a result, the containerization market is expected to reach $3 billion by 2020.

2. Hybrid orchestration with serverless architecture

There is a growing trend among IT companies towards serverless architecture. Serverless applications are divided into functions that are hosted by a third party. The vendor manages server software and hardware. This type of service should prove an advantage. However, for a while, many doubted the effectiveness of containers and serverless.

Kubernetes is going in the direction of a hybrid orchestration including serverless architecture in the hybrid cloud model of k8s. To connect Kubernetes to a serverless architecture, you can use the virtual kubelet implementation.

Virtual kubelet is an open-source k8s project which is defined as “Kubernetes API on top, programmable back”. You just have to create a virtual node representing serverless infrastructure.

3. End-to-end CI/CD with Kubernetes

Another trend that seems to continue expanding in 2020, is the integration of k8s with Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. Developers need end-to-end solutions that help them manage the entire software development life cycle.

Integrating k8s into the DevOps process eliminates the need for manually scaling and deploying containers. By automating the development cycle, k8s improves the release process and increases the agility and reliability of the pipeline.

4. Evolution to distributed orchestration

Most companies running Kubernetes centralize the container under a single orchestration tool. However, the integration of DevOps with Kubernetes supports multiple platforms. You can build the application in one system and ship the containers to another host system. This practice is evolving into distributed orchestration, with clusters working with other clusters in different environments.

5. More container security

The Kubernetes API can be exposed if not properly managed during every deployment. There have been cases, such as the Tesla breach, where the API was accidentally exposed to the Internet without authentication.

One of the trends that will gain strength in 2020 is the focus on container security. Particularly, the integration of Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems with existing container orchestration security features. The increase in security incidents related to container orchestration technologies should drive the industry to strengthen the existing security, through adding encryption services and persistent storage.

Wrap Up

The Kubernetes market is expected to continue to grow in 2020, with more companies benefiting from the scalability, portability, and automation it brings. Far from becoming restricted by new technologies, k8s seems to evolve into an umbrella platform, integrating new developments. As time passes, we’ll see new and improved k8s solutions and features, all of which supporting an efficient and secure distributed workloads across different environments.