Top Kubernetes Predictions for 2021

By members of Diamanti

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, more companies understand that a hybrid cloud strategy can give them the ability to be nimble and react quickly to changes -- such as the need to support remote workforces and distributed customers. Modern applications built with containers and Kubernetes have become the key to enabling businesses to adopt a flexible hybrid cloud strategy while simultaneously increasing agility, responsiveness and controlling costs. In this article, executives from Diamanti, the company that streamlines Kubernetes applications and data management for global enterprises, share their thoughts on the future of Kubernetes.

Gopal Sharma, CTO and co-founder, Diamanti

Kubernetes will enable everything-as-a-service

Kubernetes will be the common currency that enables the development of everything-as-a-service models. More closed- and open-source service providers, such as those that offer databases-as-a-service, for example, will build their software as a service on top of Kubernetes. Kubernetes will be the underlying technology for this trend because it works in both on-premises and cloud infrastructures.

The move toward distribution wars

We have moved past the containers orchestration wars and into the distribution wars. Kubernetes will continue to become ubiquitous in enterprises and elsewhere. The biggest hindrance to widespread adoption is a lack of requisite skill sets within the enterprise. This skill set includes, for example, site reliability engineer abilities and skills under the DevOps umbrella. Companies that move to address this skills gap will be more likely to succeed with their impending Kubernetes deployments.

Boris Kurktchiev, Field CTO, Diamanti

Federated Kubernetes will come to life

Everyone wants hybrid cloud, and hybrid cloud relies on one thing: federated Kubernetes. This idea has been the twinkle in the developer community's eye since 2015. 2021 is the year that we see a proper implementation of that to the point where organizations can truly have a hybrid cloud. Without federated Kubernetes, organizations must contend with disparate components living in different clouds but not able to truly integrate with one another.

More consideration for data stewardship and data flow

Organizations will start to give data stewardship and data flow in hybrid-cloud environments more consideration. Right now, there isn't a single technology that can give companies a block-for-block copy of data between on-premises servers and hosted cloud instances. Many teams are working on this problem by way of developing a federated Kubernetes approach. Eventually, we'll see a data plane and data guarantee for moving data between different cloud instances.

Kubernetes will become a requirement -- not just a nice to have

One big change COVID has brought is that companies must scale technology hyper quickly. Because our business environment is changing, there's no room for innovation to slow. For example, companies that were experimenting with containers saw record network traffic for their solution had to move to containers for expansion and breathing room. The requirement for rapid transition will push big companies to develop a strong footing for new technology stacks and ultimately commit to tools, such as Kubernetes.

Brian Waldon, VP of Product, Diamanti

Kubernetes as the core orchestrator for edge deployments

Edge deployments are becoming more popular as companies seek performance improvements in places like retail store locations or, say, solar fields. The path forward for these deployments is to bring all the disparate locations under a single pane of glass for management, likely by using Kubernetes as the core orchestrator. For example, companies like Chick-fil-a and Walmart are adopting Kubernetes at the edge. However, off-the-shelf Kubernetes distributions aren't a natural fit for these environments. More organizations will implement data centers at the edge, and they'll need to find a global Kubernetes platform built specifically to handle their expanding physical footprint if they are to be successful.

Companies will focus on what happens higher up the stack

Kubernetes is the star today, but it will soon fall out of the spotlight. Companies will focus on what happens higher up the stack, because it's imperative that organizations refine the pieces they layer on top of the infrastructure foundation. Companies will always have to do more with less infrastructure and fewer resources. Getting tech stacks back down to more manageable architectures will be a major part of that.

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