Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) hosted KubeCon, one of the biggest cloud events of 2019, in San Diego.

CNCF came into existence with the motive to build sustainable ecosystems and foster communities to support the growth and health of cloud-native open-source software.

The foundation governs many of the fastest-growing projects. The most prominent ones are Kubernetes (everybody’s heard of this), Prometheus, and Envoy.

KubeCon is growing bigger

KubeCon has positioned itself as the most exclusive event for open source communities embracing cloud-native possibilities. Companies utilize KubeCon to announce all the new products and features. The event saw a rise in the percentage of attendees by 50%. This year the total announcements also crossed the mark of 100, so many things to highlight. We covered the live updates of the KubeCon + CloudNative Con. Here we are bringing to you the top 6 announcements, significant updates, and key takeaways from KubeCon + CloudNative Con 2019 San Diego.

1. L aunch of Helm 3

CNCF governs Helm as an incubating project. It is one of the most popular package managers for Kubernetes.

Well, the announcement for Helm 3 was made on their official blog on Nov. 13. To present it to the cloud-native community, Helm organized two maintainers track sessions, during KubeCon, focused on Introduction to Helm and a Helm 3 Deep Dive (for which everyone was waiting).

The notable Helm 3 announcements that got attention during KubeCon and also mentioned on their Github account are:

Releases are stored in a new format

There is no in-cluster (Tiller) component

Helm 3 includes support for a new version of Helm charts (Charts v2)

Helm 3 also supports library charts — charts that are used primarily as a resource for other charts.

Experimental support for storing Helm charts in OCI registries (e.g., Docker Distribution ) is available for testing.

A 3-way strategic merge patch is now applied when upgrading Kubernetes resources.

A chart’s supplied values can now be validated against a JSON schema

A number of small improvements have been made to make Helm more secure, usable, and robust.

2. AWS + Intuit + Weaveworks + Argo Flux

Gitops Engine is a collaborated project by AWS, Intuit, and WeaveWorks on Argo Flux.

The idea for GitOps Engine came into existence when two of the most significant GitOps projects joined forces, i.e., Argo CD and Flux CD, which became Argo Flux.

GitOps Engine will be responsible for access to Git repositories, Kubernetes resource cache manifest generation, resources reconciliation, and sync planning.

Argo Flux is taking the GitOps engine’s development at the next level by collaborating with Intuit and WeaveWorks. These efforts will lead to a unified continuous deployment tool based on GitOps. AWS is also integrating GitOps in EKS and Flagger for AWS App Mesh.

Suggested Read: StackRox Survey reveals security as the main concern for Kubernetes

3. Confidential Computing for Kubernetes from Microsoft

Azure became the first major cloud platform to support confidential computing supported by Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX).

The confidential computing capabilities provide an additional layer of protection from malicious insiders at a cloud providers’ end. It will reduce the chances of data leaks and helpful in addressing compliance needs.

Microsoft announced to made confidential computing available for Kubernetes to serve a broad set of users.

Now, Kubernetes users can schedule pods and containers that are based on the Open Enclave SDK along with hardware that supports Trusted Execution Environments (TEE).

The scheduled pods in the clusters can then run containers using secure enclaves and take advantage of confidential computing.

4. Red Hat announced the CodeReady Workspaces 2.0

As the name suggests, Red Hat’s CodeReady Workspaces provides a Kubernetes-native development solution that delivers a workspace environment and in-browser IDE (based on Eclipse Che) for rapid cloud application development.

It provides any member of the development or IT team with a consistent and secure development environment with zero-configuration required. CodeReady Workspace is available for Red Hat OpenShift and Enterprise Linux.

With the latest release of CodeReady Workspaces, developers can create and build applications (or any other services) in an environment that mirrors that of production environments running on Red Hat OpeShift. In the most simple words, a developer can experience streamline the handling of development processes by integrating IDE with a production deployment environment.

5. Mirantis launches Kubernetes as a Service (KaaS)

Last Week, Mirantis recently acquired Docker’s enterprise business.

Mirantis’ efforts to go all-in for containerization got wings with the announcement of continuously updated multi-cloud Kubernetes as a Service (KaaS).

It is a pure-play K8s without API extensions, which ensures your apps can run on any cloud. Mirantis’ KaaS promises to be resilient, scalable, secure, easy to integrate and operate.

Suggested Read: Containerization vs Virtualization | Everything you need to know

6. O’Reilly Acquires Katacoda

Katacoda is an interactive technology platform that enables hands-on learning.

Through Katacoda’s integration, O’Reilly users can master critical new technologies. It will enable tech professionals to learn in real environments with the actual tools used in production that, too, in their web browser.

So, it’s a wrap from KubeCon + CloudNative Con 2019. If you find the information relevant, share it with your peers and colleagues.

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