CNCF survey in 2021: a year for kubernetes to cross the gap

author | Michael Coté

translator | Liu Yameng

planning | Ding Xiaoyun

Everyone knows that I like good research , So let's take a look at the cloud native Computing Foundation （Cloud Native Computing Foundation,CNCF）2021 Annual survey for . They asked 2302 How respondents used Kubernetes And other more general cloud native tools . The main conclusion of the report is ：Kubernetes The use of has become mainstream , Because the subtitle of the report is 2021 year ：“Kubernetes A year to cross the chasm ”.

This year's survey has many themes , But this article only introduces three topics that I am most interested in .

1 The mainstream

When CNCF The survey of “Kubernetes A year to cross the chasm ” When it is a subtitle , Means “Kubernetes Entering the mainstream ”. Let's examine this statement . First ：“ gap ”？

This is different from the theory of innovation diffusion （Diffusion of Innovations Theory） relevant , Geoffrey · Mole （Geoffrey Moore） His works are in 《 Bridging the gap 》（Crossing the Chasm） Pointed out in , The adoption of the software market has gone through five stages ： innovator 、 Early adopters 、 The early masses 、 The late masses and the laggards . All groups are interested in the new 、 The tolerance of hard to use software is gradually reduced . Innovators endure everything , Because they like to use new technology , Laggards may not even be interested in your new software . There is a gulf between the visionary and the early masses , This is something that most software companies cannot cross . That's why , For a supplier （ Now it also includes the public cloud ） Come on , What works for a small number of customers no longer works for everyone else . They have to “ Expand ” Their product management 、 engineering 、 Support 、 Sales and marketing , To extend to the organization , These organizations have more and more daily 、 natural 、 Even boring questions . therefore , Moore's model is a good model , It explains Kubernetes Whether and when it became mainstream .

Let's calculate Kubernetes Whether it has crossed the gap . In the Moore model , The performance of each group shows a bell shaped curve （ It's amazing ！）, Innovators account for 2.5%, Early adopters account for 13.5%, In the early days, the masses accounted for 34%, In the later period, the public accounted for 34%, Laggard （ Thank goodness ！） Account for only a 16%. To cross the chasm , You need to let 16%（2.5%+13.5%） People who use your software . If you are in the 17% To 50%（2.5%+13.5%+34%） Within the scope of , You enter the mainstream .

Now? , Let's calculate how many developers around the world are using Kubernetes. by CNCF To conduct this survey SlashData It is estimated that ,2021 In, there were 2680 10000 developers .CNCF Survey ,“ Now there is 560 Million developers are competing to use Kubernetes.” therefore , We can get the following pie chart ：

If my calculation is correct ,21% Greater than 16%, So this makes Kubernetes Across the chasm . Now? , Let me remind you ： I don't know SlashData and CNCF How to get about 560 Used by 10000 developers Kubernetes Of . But we continue .

I think we can all intuitively understand Kubernetes Is at the beginning of its mainstream life , It is always good to have such numbers to support this .

However , For things like Kubernetes Applications like this , I like to focus on its share of all applications ： In all applications running worldwide , How many are in Kubernetes Running on ？ up to now , According to this pie chart, I still don't know this . Some analysts have tried this , But I don't think we have a complete grasp of Kubernetes Share of all applications . Or maybe these numbers exist , I just need to change some analyst seats , Study their delicacies carefully . I hope the next survey will solve the problem of application share .

2 2021 The year is again Serverless In the year ……

39% Of the respondents used no server （Serverless） Pattern , This is obviously Serverless In the year …… But this is the past 5 Declaration for more than years . Leave the irony alone , Although the growth is not big , But it is obviously increasing .Serverless Is absolutely “ One thing ”, But its general usage rate has not changed in recent years .

since 2016 Since then （ If not earlier ）, Every year Serverless Era .2022 The annual meeting is Serverless Years? ？ stay 2021 In the survey of ,39% Of the respondents said they were using Serverless technology . In the chart below , Let's see how this is different from previous years .

obviously , stay 2020 Some strange things happened in , But the overall trend is horizontal . The use has changed little over the years , This may make you feel that all you intend to use Serverless People already use it . Besides ,O'Reilly According to the report , last year Serverless Training has dropped dramatically . perhaps , You can be more optimistic ： If you look at the assessment and planning answers over time , You might infer that there is a second wave of people right Serverless Interested in , But they haven't used it yet . If you explore this story further , You can say that this group is the late masses and the laggards . However , Because these figures are so different , My conclusion is not very accurate . We must wait and see , See what will happen in the next few years .

While waiting , We can see what people use for Serverless Public cloud serverless option . Amazon 、Azure And Google are hosting Serverless Ranked first in the list of services . since 2018 Since then , This has always been the case with the investigation . as time goes on , see Serverless Of “ Installable Software ” It will be more interesting , Because you'll see a lot of things coming and going （ Put the lid on your Margarita —— Old wine in new bottles ）：

In this chart , I only listed the top three each year （2021 Except in ）, And bring them to the next few years , See how they change . This leaves many options , for example , stay 2021 Yes 15 Frames to choose from , Include “ other ”.

Over the years , stay Serverless The use of the framework , What we see is that OpenFaaS Stand out from the crowd , and Knative It also quickly became popular . However , I'm not going to start breaking champagne bottles ： stay 2021 In the survey of , Only 151 People answered the framework question , Yes 1376 I skipped the question . There are many people who haven't considered it yet Serverless.

3 Time to market inspection ： Software release cycle

What I have always been interested in is , How long does it take for an organization to go from an idea to a software launch . The more often you release software , The more feedback you get about the effectiveness of the software , Because you can see people using it more , And adjust the function accordingly . There may be some applications that are exceptions , But I haven't seen it yet . How is the community doing with software release ？

Although in use Kubernetes It is dangerous to establish a causal relationship with the software release cycle , But in terms of frequent deployment , The people who responded to the survey did a good job . In this year's survey , exceed 80% Percent of respondents said they released the code at least once a month , among 31% Weekly release of ,33% Every day .

Although the process is gradual , But in these four years , Shortening the release cycle is a big trend . This is the key to improving software design and effectiveness , Because you can set up a small batch loop , Let you try new features every week , Learn what works , Which features are not working , So you can finally make the software better .

4 summary ： This is not a zero sum game

After watching the recent Kubernetes After the documentary （ This documentary is great , You should go and see ）, It's worth thinking about , Amazon Web services （Amazon Web Services,AWS） In public Kubernetes Service and some other questions and answers . stay Kubernetes In the documentary of , Among other motives , You will also hear Kubernetes It was originally a response to Amazon's competition . However , Amazon has not only finally joined Kubernetes camp , And has become the most used distribution and hosting Kubernetes Service company . This echoes a major point of the documentary , namely Kubernetes Not a zero sum game ： Every stakeholder is “ Winner ”, Especially users .

This year's survey still has a lot of content , If you are interested in such things , There must be more in the raw data . If you are interested in such things , You can also see what I wrote 2021 year Kubernetes Status survey report .（https://tanzu.vmware.com/content/blog/state-of-kubernetes-survey-2021-benefits-challenges?）

The authors introduce ：

Michael Coté It mainly studies how large organizations can better build software , To better run and develop the business . His book 《 Change your way of thinking 》（Changing Mindsets）、《 Overall change 》（Monolithic Transformation） and 《 Business bottlenecks 》（The Business Bottleneck ） Covers these topics . He used to be RedMonk and 451 Research Industry analysts of , Studied enterprise strategy and M & A , Also worked as a programmer . He also co hosted several podcasts , These include Software Defined Talk, His blog and podcast address is cote.io,Twitter Account number is @cote.

Link to the original text ：

https://www.infoq.com/articles/k8s-cncf-survey-chasm/