{"id":41576,"date":"2020-11-18T10:25:01","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T10:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/?guid=d0032ff8e3af55368ef3ce24cdc585c0"},"modified":"2020-11-18T10:25:01","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T10:25:01","slug":"cloud-foundry-looks-to-embrace-kubernetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/cloud-foundry-looks-to-embrace-kubernetes\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloud Foundry looks to embrace Kubernetes"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n Maxwell Cooter<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

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19 Nov, 2020<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/a><\/p>\n

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We\u2019re now getting used to the idea of virtual conferences<\/a>,\u00a0but while they work very well at getting the information across, what\u2019s often lacking is the shock when any organisation or vendor establishes a new path or announces a new direction.<\/p>\n

The recent Cloud Foundry Summit is a case in point.\u00a0 The open source software organisation has coalesced its offerings around Kubernetes<\/a> and announced several new projects to support the container technology, but according to Cloud Foundry Foundation executive director Chip Childers, this decision wasn\u2019t straight forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a split opinion around the community,\u201d Childers told attendees, \u201cjust how much should we accept and embrace Kubernetes.\u201d It was a difficult decision, as Kubernetes was emerging as a de facto standard for containerisation but, on the other hand, there was a definite feeling that it was not really a part of the Cloud Foundry ecosystem.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s all now changed. The organisation has thoroughly embraced the technology. \u201cKubernetes is the new infrastructure, it\u2019s going to be ubiquitous,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a view that\u2019s been whole-heartedly supported by the vendors in the Cloud Foundry ecosystem. Ian Andrews, VP of marketing for VMware Tanzu<\/a> says that \u201cthe concentration on Kubernetes was a view very much shared by the team at VMware\u201d.<\/p>\n

What helped the decision making process is a number of mergers and acquisitions in the ecosystem \u2013 notably VMware\u2019s purchase of Pivotal<\/a> \u2013 and that set the path for a new direction.<\/p>\n

Mainstream clout<\/span><\/h2>\n

Andrews says the deal combined the best of both worlds; Pivotal had created a name for itself in the Cloud Foundry community, \u201cbut had a relatively small number of users. VMware with its user base in the tens of thousands added that Cloud Foundry expertise to its range of products.\u201d This integration has seen the emergence of the Tanzu brand, a means of adding Kubernetes to the VMware portfolio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The concentration on Kubernetes and the enhanced participation of VMware has definitely provided a boost to Cloud Foundry, which perhaps has never quite had the clout it should, even though it\u2019s a well-established platform and, most importantly of all, has a thriving, almost fanatically devoted user base.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This has meant that it could never be ignored but, at the same time, it\u2019s never permeated public consciousness. \u201cCloud Foundry has one major problem,\u201d says Bryan Betts, principal analyst for Freeform Dynamics, \u201cwithin the open source community it\u2019s seen as rather like your dad\u2019s open source: It\u2019s been around for some time and it\u2019s seen as rather dull.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In most areas of IT, longevity would be seen as a bit of an asset. There are too many flavours of the month that attract a heap of interest, generate plenty of hype and vanish as quickly as they appear. In such a world, Cloud Foundry\u2019s robustness and stability should be cherished but, as Betts points out, that’s not always been a positive sign within the open source world.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Cloud Foundry has been doing has been very exciting. Some of the things that they were doing two or three years ago were ahead of their time and were precursors of the whole microservices movement \u2013 that\u2019s now been forgotten. Cloud Foundry is finding that perception is all \u2013 and this is an industry built on perception.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s something that the Foundation dearly wants to change. It hopes that its new found wholesale adoption of Kubernetes will provide Cloud Foundry with the kick-start it needs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Applying a devops model<\/span><\/h2>\n

The first of the projects revealed to the wider world at the summit is CFfor-K8s, software aimed at making the transition to Cloud Foundry easier. CF-for-K8s enables users to run Cloud Foundry instances on top of a Kubernetes platform \u2013 offering what the Foundation claims is an easy integration between the two technologies. Childers claims that the new project would enable users to spin up Cloud Foundry within just ten minutes \u2013 a big claim, considering that Cloud Foundry hasn\u2019t always been the most intuitive pieces of software.<\/span><\/p>\n

The flipside of CF-for-K8s is KubeCF, which offers a way for Cloud Foundry users to run Kubernetes. This is more established software, however, and it was version 4.5 that was released at Cloud Foundry Summit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Freeform Dynamics\u2019 Betts says that one way of thinking about the relationship between CF-for-K8s and KubeCF would be to consider the devops model. \u201cThink of CF-for-K8s as being the dev side will KubeCF is the ops part \u2013 and that part is just as important,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The third new release is a new version of Stratos, the management console for Cloud Foundry clusters. The new version, 4.2, adds support for native Kubernetes clusters and Helm chart repositories.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All of these show how Kubernetes is beginning to be more integrated into the ecosystem and there\u2019s a hope in the Foundation that this will herald a new boost to adoption. Childers sees plenty of opportunity for growth. \u201cThere\u2019s a perception that Cloud Foundry is only for large corporations; if that were true, it\u2019s because that\u2019s where the skillset was,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He sees plenty of opportunity for small companies to use Cloud Foundry \u2013 the closer integration with Kubernetes will provide a pathway for these users.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is still a growing area for a lot of smaller organisations and there\u2019s plenty of new opportunity now for growth. The Cloud Foundry project may have been slow to recognise the significance of Kubernetes but it\u2019s catching up now and is using it as a springboard for new areas.\u00a0 Current systems are immensely complicated, says Andrews, but this is changing, the embrace of Kubernetes will help. \u201cWe\u2019re getting to that moment of peak complexity, we\u2019ve climbed the mountain and on the downwards slope,\u201d he adds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Betts sees the potential for Cloud Foundry if they can crack this perception issue. \u201cThere are people who have started new projects and found it\u2019s something that Cloud Foundry already does.\u201d He says that the Foundation has all the right elements in place but users have to be informed. \u201cThey have to know it\u2019s there and have to know what to do with it,\u201d he says. It seems that the Foundation is on the right path to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maxwell Cooter<\/p>\n

19 Nov, 2020 <\/p>\n

We\u2019re now getting used to the idea of virtual conferences,\u00a0but while they work very well at getting the information across, what\u2019s often lacking is the shock when any organisation or vendor es…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":652,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/652"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41576"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41580,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41576\/revisions\/41580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}