Key Kubernetes and Edge Trends to Watch

Daniel Bartholomew, Webscale’s Chief Product Officer, has shared his insights on four noteworthy trends to monitor within the realms of Kubernetes, container orchestration, and the expanding landscape of edge computing.

Kubernetes as a Service Will Gain Momentum: With workload management evolving to encompass serverless and virtual machines, and the operational ecosystem (including security and observability) becoming more robust, Kubernetes is gradually abstracting itself from users. This trend aligns with the “as a service” model, akin to how cloud computing brought about compute as a service. Expect to witness the rise of Kubernetes as a Service in the years to follow.

Telcos Will Reassert Their Presence: Investments in Edge infrastructure from Internet Service Providers (ISPs), telcos, Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), hosting companies, and hyperscale cloud providers will persist. These infrastructure providers will increasingly seek application-level technologies that facilitate developers in deploying their workloads on this infrastructure. The resurgence of telcos in this context will be notable.

Mainstream Adoption of Data Distribution: Enabling the efficient distribution of data or Edge applications poses challenges in terms of maintaining consistency. Fortunately, organizations have made significant investments in solving these challenges. Techniques such as caching, distribution, and replication are being employed to ensure that data remains available across distributed footprints while adhering to ACID (or similar) properties. This trend will become more prevalent in 2023 and beyond.

The Evolving Concept of the Edge: The ongoing debate regarding the definition and boundaries of the Edge will persist. Some distributed systems may be perceived as more or less “Edge-like” than others. However, what remains indisputable is the advantages that come with distributing applications to broader hosting footprints. These advantages encompass reduced latency, enhanced reliability, redundancy, and cost-effective data backhaul. Consequently, a new phase may emerge, focusing on the distribution of applications rather than the traditional concept of the Edge.

In summary, the years ahead promise to be exciting with Kubernetes as a Service gaining prominence, telcos making a comeback in the Edge infrastructure arena, data distribution becoming mainstream, and ongoing discussions about the evolving nature of the Edge. These trends will shape the landscape of Kubernetes, container orchestration, and edge computing in the coming years.