Hello Cloud Gurus.
I'm Nigel Poulton, and in this month's episode of Kubernetes This Month we'll shine the spotlight
on the recent KubeCon North America event.
Plus, we'll dive into a couple of important announcements from the event.
Okay.
So
for this month's Deep Dive section, we'll be focusing on KubeCon 2021 North America
as an event.
But also we'll look at a couple of the big announcements from there.
So, first up it was, I want to say a relief to see KubeCon back as an in-person event,
or at least it was a hybrid event with a mix of people actually attending in-person, as
well as some attending virtually.
Now the numbers I've seen suggest around 3000 attended in-person, with a further 20,000
attending virtually.
Well word back from those attending in-person is that it felt like the good old days.
So booths were back and busy and there were parties and obviously quality sessions, but
most importantly, people felt safe and they're starting to believe that in-person events
can be done safely.
Magic.
Well on the news and announcements front, Cilium joining the CNCF grabbed my attention,
as did the new entry-level Kubernetes certification.
So on the Cilium front, the technology itself is basically advanced networking with top-rated
observability and security in a single project.
Now it's based on eBPF.
And I think I'm right in saying that Envoy integration, which will bring those kernel-based
service mesh capabilities, is also on the roadmap.
So believe me, the tech elements are epic.
But I also think it might already be the most popular CNI plugin in the entire ecosystem.
I mean, I know it's used for the GKE data plane as well as EKS Anywhere, and that's
without even mentioning the independent projects that are using it.
Well, now that it's part of the CNCF, and of course it's currently just in the incubating
phase, but even so this is only going to drive further adoption and further maturity of the
project.
So there's an eBPF revolution going on and Cilium is bringing it to Kubernetes in style.
Basically, if you're looking to do serious networking with Kubernetes, look no further
than Cilium.
Switching tact to the new Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate certification.
And I know a bunch of you love a good certification.
Well, this one's an entry-level, multiple choice exam, testing entry-level knowledge
and skills.
It's currently in beta, and it might be generally available by the end of the year.
And if you're interested, and you should be, it tests fundamental concepts and skills such
as Kubernetes architecture, deploying apps with kubectl, and some wider things from the
ecosystem, like maybe some basic GitOps and service mesh stuff.
So, exciting times.
Okay.
So number one in my picks from last month is Google's announcement of Anthos for VMs
being released as preview.
So Anthos is Google's universal control plane...of sorts, and those are just my words.
But it basically manages Kubernetes wherever you want it.
Anyway, as it's based on GKE, Google's Kubernetes engine, it was all about container workloads.
Well now it's extending its reach to VMs, and that's definitely a good thing as most
organizations that I know, at least the ones that are interested in Anthos, have a mixture
of containers and VM workloads.
Anyway, if you're going the Anthos route, you'll be getting standardized processes and
tooling for containers and VMs.
Sounds like a winner to me.
Number two, for this month.
At their recent Google Cloud Next event, Google announced Google Distributed Cloud, which
in a nutshell looks like Google cloud, wherever you need it.
So at the edge, in your data centers, and even the 5g edge on carrier networks.
Now, again, it's early days but there is a real push from the major clouds to extend
their reach and services to as many places as possible.
And I know that places like the 5g edge, so having cloud hardware and services available
on a carrier's network, like right at the edge of 5g can be a game changer.
So I'm talking entirely new classes of edge applications.
Well, that's it for this month's edition of Kubernetes This Month.
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Stay safe everybody, and I'll see you again next month.
Same kube time, same kube place.