TechTalks: K8s in Focus – The Community’s POV on Kubernetes Growth

Table of Contents

• TechTalks
• Focus K8s – The Community POV on Kubernetes Growth
• More K8s Content and Video Interview

TechTalks

TechTalks is a new series we start as part of anynines content creation in order to discuss all tech, cloud and open source related.

We intend to have interviews and panels aiming to include corporate, customers and community, to share opinions, experiences and challenges of the Digital Transformation era.

Focus K8s – The Community POV on Kubernetes Growth

anynines, as a Digital Transformation company, is constantly looking at the future, new stack and trends. This way, we better attend to our customers and partners, whilst being supportive within the communities we are part of.

And the Kubernetes community has such an important voice in its own niche that no one in the cloud technology field could nor should ignore. 

We decided to start a two-part series inside TechTalks, where we are focusing on K8s. With its adoption and incredible growth, it was only fitting that we start by looking into its effects and changes within the Kubernetes community. 

This way, to get the inside scoop on the community’s point of view, we talked with CNCF Ambassador, Data on Kubernetes Head of Community, amateur rapper, and tech from the human side, Bart Farrell. 

1. Hi Bart, we are super happy to talk to you! Let’s get right into it. 

Since Kubernetes is becoming a core part of open source technology, how do you see the impact of this exponential growth in the current community of professionals?

I think it’s making a clear cut case for the importance of participation both in open source and, by extension, community. 

The CNCF interviewed nearly 20,000 developers in early 2021 and found that 5.6 million new developers were using Kubernetes from the same time in 2020. Seeing a 67% increase in just one year tells us a lot. 

Many folks believe we’re still in the early days of Kubernetes adoption as we often hear about how we’re all on a mission to make it “more boring.” 

These developers have questions, will need support, and will hopefully want to give back to the community through code or non-code contributions to Kubernetes as well as the other open-source projects in the cloud-native ecosystem. 

2. What do you see as the biggest challenges for the community due to such growth in businesses’ adoptions?

Things are moving at a very fast pace, and “overwhelming” is a word we often see and hear. 

In order for that to be less commonplace, I think we shouldn’t be starting at 0, but rather below 0 to break these concepts down into the simplest building blocks that we can. 

There are some wonderful folks out there doing it, but I’d like to see even more, particularly localizing content in different languages to make it more accessible and inviting to folks from different countries. 

3. What do you think could be improved to facilitate access to training or to even spark the interest in newcomers to work with Kubernetes?

Time and time again, we must repeat that there are a ton of ways to get involved, the first one being to embrace a beginner’s mind and have a positive attitude. 

That collective energy is contagious and makes the learning process one in which we celebrate every gain we make. Impostor Syndrome should be our common enemy, and it’s a privilege to be able to create spaces where new folks can play a role regardless of how much experience they have. 

Things such as correcting typos in documentation, sharing updates on social media, and participating in shadow programs and mentorships are great ways for new folks to get involved. 

4. How would you believe corporates can help in the matter of attracting new professionals interested in Kubernetes?

Corporates can do it by truly paying it forward. They can leverage organizations such as the CNCF by encouraging their employees to participate in open source projects there on company time. 

The knowledge they can acquire about cutting edge projects such as Thanos, Crossplane, Vitess,  and OpenEBS, to name a few, is immense and can provide endless amounts of know-how that are useful for their organizations. 

We see the endless vacancies. We know they’ve got VC funding. They’ve got to think about long-term strategies where they truly embrace and commit to open source.  

5. What do you see as the role of Data on Kubernetes Community in the matter of training newcomers in this area of business?

Our role has always been to catalyze conversations by being a central meeting point where practitioners can share knowledge about the Data on Kubernetes ecosystem. 

We see storage, databases, machine learning, analytics, and it only continues to grow. 

We’ve had over 170 talks since we got started through live streams and Kubecons, so we know that there is something to be said here. 

The foundations for utilizing these technologies are being laid down with every speaker we have, which makes getting started that much easier. 

And the best part is, we’re still getting started. If we go back to those 5.6 million new developers who are using Kubernetes, that means there are millions of new people with whom we can connect and engage. 

More K8s Content and Video Interview

You can learn more about Data on Kubernetes Community on their website, and by following them or Bart on Twitter. Most of the past events and talks promoted by the DoK Community are also available on their YouTube channel.

Bart Farrell and DoKC are partners that we hold very close to our hearts here at anynines. He has collaborated with us speaking at our Cloud Native Saar 3# Meetup, and participated in a TFiR panel with Julian Fischer during 2021 KubeCon NA.

Meanwhile, Julian has spoken during DoK Day LA 2021 – you can watch parts 1, 2, and 3 on our Youtube Channel -, and much more is about to come from this love for K8s story.