Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2024. Read them in this 16th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
2024 Kubernetes Trends: Platform Engineering and Enhanced Security Predictions
By Kay James, solutions engineer, Ambassador Labs
As we reflect on the year prior and look ahead to the new one that looms only a few weeks away, there are a variety of exciting trends and movements within the technology space. 2023 saw an emergence of even greater powerful technologies, such as AI and LLMs, that forced many companies to up their due diligence around their security measures and data collection practices. 2023 also brought us more upheaval in the tech industry, greater cost-cutting, and more mindfulness of our practices and the tools we choose to operate within.
With that in mind, as folks who are tied heavily to the Kubernetes and API security space, these are the three predictions we believe will happen in 2024:
1. Shifting Java Apps to Kubernetes & Better DevEx
The Dzone 2023 report on the state of Kubernetes reported that ‘74% of developers choose Java as their most-used language.’ Java has been the language of choice for decades, especially for large organizations-but we expect to see more developers shifting their Java apps to Kubernetes in the new year. That same report noted that nearly all (99%) of developers at “organizations with 100+ employees are using application containers,” meaning that Kubernetes is here to stay.
This shift represents a strategic move towards more agile, resilient, and efficient application deployment models, catering to the growing demands for digital transformation in businesses. This transition enables Java applications to leverage the full potential of modern cloud architectures, thereby ensuring they remain competitive and relevant in today’s fast-paced technology landscape.
How that Kubernetes technology is reaching, conversations will shift to, “Now that we’re here, how do we ensure the development experience is positive, and do it in a way that scales?” The people are here, and it’s our job to make them stay. An increased focus on Kubernetes-specific developer experience will be a trend in the new year.
2. Greater Interest in Platform Engineering as a Practice
We noticed at multiple industry conferences this year that platform engineering is on the rise. Platform engineering involves creating and managing a shared platform, which provides a suite of tools and services to streamline and automate the development, deployment, and operation of applications, thereby enhancing the efficiency and consistency across the microservices development lifecycle.
For most developer teams to get this right, however, they must ensure they take a holistic approach. Many developer teams were already doing platform engineering previously, just without the name associated with it. Treat your engineering team like you would any other external customer, and recognize that a platform engineer is an engineer with a product mindset.
As platform engineering techniques proliferate, our team is keeping an eye on two things:
- How platform engineering improves the initiation of development projects through a consistent and predictable set of tools.
- How platform engineering is empowering developers with the proper internal developer platforms to test and deploy code without delays in their development lifecycle.
For smaller teams looking to implement platform engineering approaches, we expect they’ll invest in building a scalable and reliable infrastructure to handle increasing user demands. They can also incorporate the idea of high-velocity teams to achieve the same results as large enterprises implementing platform engineering.
3. Increased Security Earlier On & More Zero Trust
Cybercrime will cost companies an estimated $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, and over 94% of API developers have had some security issues with their production APIs over the past year (Salt Security). Selecting a solid API Gateway tool and other security-focused tools will help mitigate the risk of breaches, hacks, and failures. Along with that, we’re predicting more and more developers will also shift left in their security practices, incorporating security approaches and safeguards into their practice as early as the design phase of their development lifecycles.
And speaking of security, we believe there will be a more significant uptick in Zero Trust security models. This idea is rooted in the principle of treating users, systems, and network traffic as fundamentally untrusted even though they are within the security perimeter established by a firewall. With Zero Trust, one should make no assumptions and explicitly check each individual and interaction. Especially now that many of us remote-work dominant, Zero-Trust security approaches will continue to flourish.
In the end, as 2023 closes out and our team here at Ambassador Labs works together to ring in the new year, we expect to see more application of clever tools and a greater need for innovation as teams still have to resort to scrappy and creative methods to meet similar goals on a reduced budget. We’re looking forward to 2024, and check back to see if our predictions become true!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Markeo (Kay) James is a solutions engineer at Ambassador Labs and currently resides in New York. Passionate about technology, good food, and creating great music, Kay enjoys being able to help others solve technology problems. Prior to joining Ambassador Labs, she graduated from New York University with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.
