Kubernetes market to overcome adoption barriers in 2021

Despite its advantages, we predict that 2021 will finally see the Kubernetes market overcome adoption barriers and cloud-native technologies will continue to develop and evolve.

Cloud-Native Stack Adoption No Longer a Proof of Concept

Cloud-native stack adoption will continue to grow, but the “quality” of growth is changing. In previous years we saw a lot of companies and DevOps professionals testing the water with cloud-native technologies, now the share of production users is quickly increasing. We predict that companies will continue to upgrade their proof of concept projects, testing cloud-native technology stacks and scaling them for production usages. We see companies planning greenfield cloud-native stack deployments prepared for production use on day one and companies who built in-house cloud-native Kubernetes capability and technology over the recent years, and now migrating to vendor products after realizing that in-house Kubernetes management and maintenance is not their core business.

Kubernetes Enterprise Users Gain Sophistication

A related trend that we are seeing is the growing sophistication of new and current enterprise Kubernetes users. A large share of customers in the last year needed a basic introduction to the cloud-native technology stack - defining what containers, container orchestration, and Kubernetes are and what benefits they bring. Now we see that more and more organizations are already beyond these simple basic questions and understand the cloud-native landscape.

Many customers have turned their focus to realizing and formulating a real-life enterprise Kubernetes platform deployment. We are seeing customers that are already running Kubernetes implementations and need an “in-flight” adjustment on strategy and direction to improve future-readiness and business function. One promising aspect of this trend is that those that are just planning their Kubernetes deployment and cloud-native platform are taking into consideration system requirements that are beyond the core container orchestration capability. For example, centralized management, reduced learning curve, and a more “hands-off” approach for the operations teams, self-service, enterprise security, and reliability on day one.

Kubernetes market, Multi-Cloud, Hybrid, and On-Premise Gain Traction

Another trend that we will continue to see growing in 2021 is multi-cloud, hybrid, and on-premise deployments that include operation readiness and vendor independence from day one.  In fact, even cloud providers have started talking about multi-cloud solutions, a significant development since their advancements into on-premise deployment over the recent years. This will be an important move for larger enterprises.

It is no secret that the cloud-native stack, containers, and Kubernetes took the IT industry by storm and there is no doubt that they provide enormous benefits and a competitive edge for organizations.  In 2021, the cloud-native adoption trajectory does not seem to slow down; if anything, cloud-native and Kubernetes adoption continue to grow and increase in speed. As the industry changes quantitatively, new trends are developing, vendors and users are changing and adjusting, growing more mature and sophisticated. The Kubernetes promise of abstracting the infrastructure materializes in multi-cloud and hybrid-friendly technologies and solutions.