Google reinvented cloud software with Kubernetes. Now, hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing into the growing market for protecting Kubernetes from cyber threats.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are pouring in to companies that are building technology to keep Kubernetes cloud-software technology safe.
It's a market that is likely to continue to accelerate in the months ahead as organizations increasingly rely on Kubernetes for day-to-day operations, and asthe risks of potential security exploits grow.
Kubernetes is an open source cloud-software project, first developed by Google five years ago as a way to help manage its own container infrastructure. In 2019, Kubernetes has moved far beyond Google and is now developed under the auspices of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), with support on Amazon's and Microsoft's public cloud platforms. Kubernetes is also widely used by organizations large and small including Tesla, Spotify, CERN, eBay, IBM, Oracle and both Uber and Lyft, among others. Even Apple is getting in on the game, announcing on June 11 that it has joined the CNCF as a platinum end user member.
Containers, as first popularized by Docker, provide a way for developers to compactly build and deliver applications. A "containerized" application is highly portable and runs on top of a container engine that an organization can choose to runs on-premises, or in the cloud. Kubernetes integrates a container engine, and provides a way for companies to run and deploy large volumes of containers in a coordinated and resilient way. As companies big and small use containers to deploy and run applications that are part of business operations, there is a need to make sure they stay secure. Simply put, a security issue in a company's container and Kubernetes stack could put the company at risk from un-intentional data disclosure or even a full scale data breach.