Exploring Cloud Native Technologies with Brian Douglas – KubeCon Europe 2025

This is Textron tv. Hey, everybody. We're back at CubeCon plus Cloud, native Con Europe, and we're talking with Brian Douglas, newly appointed head of ecosystem for the foundation that runs this show.

Brian, welcome the show. Yeah, Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

So you've been with the foundation for a little while now and you've taken on this new role. Yeah. Um, but I'm not quite clear what the head of ecosystem does.

So what is the brief, what is the charter? Because, you know, you could just declare yourself king of everything, but Oh, yeah, yeah. I, I'll take that.

If it comes with a raise, I'll take that up. I'll take king of, king of all ecosystem, uh, no ecosystem and user program. So, uh, end users are folks who leverage Cloud Native.

Uh, and the question really is, if Cloud native was removed, would their business still be intact? Uh, and the answer, if it's yes, like a New York Times or a Bloomberg, yes, they'll still have a business, but their is accelerate accelerated with the cloud. So I work with those folks, uh, to help engage them in the things like the TOC, the TAB and all these, uh, committees within the, the CNCF.

So it's mainly talking to the end user community Correct. As opposed to the vendors and the individual projects. Um, so how engaged is that end user community?

What are you trying to achieve? Yeah, so engagement's great. We, I think we're represent over 200 company member companies that are represented within these different organizations, communities and user groups.

Uh, in the keynote today, um, so we're at day three, uh, we actually had a TOC members kind of explain the structure of the TOC, the tag, the technical advisory groups that specifically engage in things like AI with infrastructure, multi-cloud deployments. Uh, these are folks who are really just helping expand what's out there in the ecosystem, uh, through contribution and through feedback. Yeah, Because I think with all these projects, there's a certain amount of mystery surrounding the whole process.

Yeah. And a lot of people are like, well, I'd love to offer feedback, but I got, I don't know who to give feedback to. Yeah, Yeah.

Yeah. So it starts with me. So email to me, if you want to get directed, I'm a, I'm a party planner, uh, so I'll get you directly the right, the right groups, uh, so you can have conversations.

Uh, a lot of these groups have public meetings, so they'll have some private meetings, but they'll have pub public meetings to, uh, surface that feedback. So a lot of times you can open an issue, but that could be daunting. Uh, so instead of this opening issue blindly, you could start with the conversation.

One of the issues we were talking about on this show the other day was that there seems to be a lot of adoption of Kubernetes, but a lot of the other projects don't get the same recognition. So what is the plan to kind of like build on the, what I would call the beachhead of Kubernetes? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, Kubernetes is really turning into what Lennox did for at least 20 years ago for us. Uh, now it's sort of a bedrock of what we do in our infrastructure.

Kubernetes is now becoming the net foothold. Uh, but now you see things like Argo, which has a really good understanding within the community. Uh, started out at Intuit, uh, Intuit spun it out.

It's a donated project now. It's got a bid, uh, it's got vendors around, it's got a community around that. Uh, and it really just started with the cycle of Intuit, sending that to community, building a sort of a understanding and like integrations, um, for leveraging that.

So it comes down to, this is why end users are so important, because if end users are leveraging this stuff or have problems that some of these technologies can, um, have case studies around reference architectures. That's how we, we set up this, uh, wider adoption. And then clearly I have some clear playbooks on how people can integrate this stuff.

Speaking of playbooks, the Linux Foundation has this, uh, open source program office initiative where they're trying to get organizations to set up their own little office for managing open source and their relationships. Yeah. So does that dovetail what you're trying to do?

Yeah, Yeah, for sure. Like, that's usually, uh, folks usually have an osbo that's a coincides with their end user programs as well. Internally.

Uh, not every company has an osbo, but it's a good, it's a good goal to get to. So we have, uh, organizations like the DO group to do group, uh, within the, uh, Linux Foundation. Uh, and this is like the, the, the who's who when it comes to open source and adoption and technology.

So this goes beyond just Kubernetes. Um, and these are folks who really just share their playbooks publicly on how they're expanding adoption within with an open source. You know, I noticed a couple end user companies actually went to the trouble at creating Boots here.

I saw Bloomberg and I was poking around there, and they were, so, mission was they were just trying to hire people. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a big deal. Like, uh, uh, Chris had a big announcement about our job board that we've announced this, uh, for folks who are looking for very niche type technol, uh, technologists, folks who know platform engineering and like different flavors. They all come to these events.

Uh, and one of our end user benefits is actually, uh, we give you access, uh, for recruiting. Uh, so you get a a, a, a pretty good D discount, uh, for a booth, uh, if you're just specifically looking for recruiting. Uh, so we do have representation for, for Bloomberg, which you called out.

So one of the challenges you also hear is people say they just don't have enough skills to accelerate. Yeah. They finally get cloud native, but they just don't have enough people who are engineers.

And on the one hand, we, hopefully the technology will become more accessible, but, um, what are you guys doing to help close that skills gap? Yeah, That's a great question. So like, I've, I've mentioned end User Pro programs, but we have a membership tiered system.

So like, there's a supporter tier where folks, uh, you could join and get coupon tickets. You could also get access to our LF training program. Uh, part of the coops or knots training program aligns with, with LF training as well.

Uh, so you get actual licenses and discounts, uh, to send your team through online training, uh, higher tiers. You could actually have, um, uh, what do you call it? Uh, I'm gonna say teachers, uh, actual human beings teaching you this technology.

So you can have like five individuals of your company have one-on-one conversations with experts, uh, and get that training. So really LF training, uh, this CNCF membership strategy of this program is really just to educate and advance cloud native ecosystems at end users. Are we reaching some sort of critical tipping point here?

Because early on when there was a Kubernetes cloud native project, they were like, the guys in the corner over there are working on that thing. Yeah. And the rest of the IT department is doing VMware and whatever.

Yeah. Um, but are we getting enough critical mass to the point now where that is as, as big as the rest of the legacy infrastructure? And do we need to kind of find a way to co-manage these things a little more interestingly?

Yeah. I mean, that's what we're, that's what we're seeing right now. We have over 200 projects within the CNCF, so there's a lot of, uh, division of thought and different choice right now.

Uh, but what we're seeing right now is some centralization around, at least with Kubernetes, like, you're not asking a question of like, Kubernetes are mess mesosphere right now. Like your Kubernetes is your orchestration platform for DevOps and for platform engineering. Uh, so what we're gonna see in the next couple years is now some centralization around technologies and flavors of technologies.

Uh, what we don't have an answer to today is AI to how you build AI at scale. So like, let's go past the buzzwords, like we're automating machine learning, like that's what we're actually doing right now with, um, with what AI is today. Uh, but when you like autoscale GPUs, that comes with a whole nother wave of, of problems.

Uh, so we're now looking forward to what, how we're gonna solve that. But some of the decisions around CI/CD around security, it's not all solved, but there's like 70% of the way, like, we're there. So it used to be like, you're not gonna get fired for using IBM.

Like, you're not gonna get fired for using Kubernetes. You're not gonna get fired for choosing CNCF projects into your stack. Uh, and that's the hope as we move forward.

Like things will change, but at least we have some consistency. Is AI also something in the catalyst for driving more interest in Cloud Native? Because Yeah, everybody woke up one morning and said, oh my God, I gotta have ai.

And last time I checked, most of that stuff seems to run in containers on a Kubernetes platform. Yeah. So is that driving the ecosystem?

A hundred percent. I mean, if you're doing it correctly, it's in containers. Uh, it's using Kubernetes.

I, I know there's a lot of d different flavors, but at the end of the day, it's, it's infrastructure. And like, yes, the names are changing and like how we deploy it might be changing a little bit. Maybe we're using GPUs instead of CPUs in certain situations.

Uh, but in reality, like networking, security, it's all gonna be the same, same things that we're solving. And I think the, the biggest thing to, to set of really talk about is we don't have to reinvent the wheel every time a new thing comes out. Like we have proven patterns and best practices that we can just reapply to this new wave of technology.

When you go visit the members of the ecosystem, what do you hear from them in terms of the feedback? What are they stressing out about? What are they trying to, you know, work through?

Yeah, I mean, really they're all these questions you're asking right now, they ask these same questions. There's, uh, okay, there's a lot of choice. You know, we need more structured playbooks.

And what we're really trying to do is get those stories that folks are succeeding, uh, and share those playbooks. So we have case studies that we've been really, so, uh, Michelin actually had some time on stage yesterday in the keynote. Uh, they have a case study of how they scaled and self on-prem deployments for Michelin, the, uh, the tire company, but also it's Michelin star restaurants in in the US at least we know.

And, um, so they're sharing their playbook. And now we have the telcos, like Swisscom had some time on stage talking about how they're, in the last three years, they're now using Cloud native, coming from a place where they had black boxes posted in racks. Uh, now you can do more orchestration from your keyboard as opposed to being in the KVM down in the data center.

Are you seeing more, uh, activities start to revolve around particular vertical industries? 'cause I know like the finance guys are always like, our world is different from everybody else's world. Yeah.

And of course, everybody else says the same thing about their world, how true that is. I'm not sure, but you know, it seems like they like to have birds of a feather. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, yes. So we have, in the Lennox Foundation, we do have other foundations like the FENOs Foundation, so birds of a Feather.

Uh, a lot of the, the big banks, the credit cards are all really collaborating. And this is the important part about end users and why we have all these groups. We want a non-competitive environment for folks who share, uh, remove the names, remove all the secret sauce, but like, let's share high level storytelling on how we're solving these problems.

Because when we can all agree that, hey, we're on the same rising tide raises all boats, we can now move forward and solve harder problems. So, uh, now AI becomes our harder problem right now. It's expensive.

How do we, how we cost, uh, how, how, how can we mitigate cost constraints right now with GPU usage? Um, those are things that people now collaborating have these conversations around. And you can have it in a way that's okay, we're, we're not really worried about stock prices and what badge that we walked in or what, what sort of Patagonian sweater we're wearing.

Uh, instead we're focused on how can we advance the ecosystem and really move forward and make things cost effective? Let's get the best staff at our, our employer, and our on our teams. And, uh, yeah, move forward.

As I listen to you, you're kinda starting to sound like a therapist to me. Yes. It's gonna be okay.

We're gonna make through, Um, Keep calm and push forward is what they say. There You go. So will the community cross pollinate more of the projects?

'cause I think some of the issue that these projects are having is that there's a narrow group of people working on them, but there's a huge amount of talent in the businesses, in the companies using these technologies. And those smaller projects could use that help a lot more than say, Kubernetes can. So how do you kind of like shepherd all these people to the right projects that fit them?

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's a great question. This, these are questions that I'm fielding right now with our end users. So really it comes down to, there's, there's this whole thing where folks eventually when you get enough skill set, you sort of elevate to the cloud.

Like you, you're a maintainer, but then you get a nice cushy job. So then you have to do business decisions. So what we're really trying to do is with your membership, your, your participation at the CNCF at CubeCon Yes.

And it's getting booth time. Yes, it's like getting stage time to get recruiting, but it's also, we could use your help. Like we could use your help where hiring, or not even hiring, fielding a full-time staff member to watch the issues, like show up at the meetings.

Uh, it's not always about contributing code, but it's also getting the end user perspective within the technology. Uh, so when we have some of these newer up and coming projects that are, that need that feedback, uh, we're now helping with the TOC to, uh, one set up the, the stage so these end users can come through and say, Hey, you know what, uh, it sounds like these projects are solving problems. Seems like there's some maturity.

It's been graduated. Uh, we're now looking to apply this to the story that we have. Uh, and then what we've really been doing some handholding and storytelling.

So all these case studies that I mentioned with Michelin, this some handholding of these projects now getting injected in the story storytelling. So now people can feel confident when I go choose some of these more up and coming projects. Uh, Michelin's using it, Bloomberg's using it.

I have confidence that if I use this in my ecosystem internally, uh, with my staff, uh, we won't be out of luck when things change. Yeah. I was actually looking through the CNCF research and one of the things that popped out at me was a lot more people are looking to see how active a project is before they actually bring it in house.

So, um, this feels like this a somewhat symbiotic relationship Yeah. That needs to emerge. Yeah.

Yeah. I, I mean, so prior the, me joining the CNCF, I was actually working on a startup called Open Source, and we specifically solved for this problem and project health. Uh, so CNCF projects, we actually identify things like lottery factor, uh, things for, they call it elephant factor.

So how many, uh, companies are represented in the contribution graph. Uh, and these are things that, the reason why I came over is that we want to help institute that knowledge inside of the tools like Devs Stats and, and the LFX platform. So will you go back to the individual projects and, and give them advice about how to better engage with the end users?

Who to create that, that That's the goal. So we have, we, we do have a, a few people on the staff. So I don't, uh, specifically work with end user, uh, sorry, with projects directly.

Uh, but I will bring end users to the table while some of my peers will also bring the projects to the table as well. So it's a big party. Like we'll have a, we'll have a tap tower hall later this afternoon, uh, where end users can talk with projects, uh, for 30 minutes over there in the project pavilion.

And, uh, that's the benefit of being here in, in London and having the companies here, having the project main maintainers here. Uh, we can have the conversation here, uh, and we can speed up the cycles rather than go back and forth asynchronously through discussions and issues. Zoom meeting doesn't cut it, uh, zoom, Great Zoom Hangouts, whatever tool you're using.

Uh, but there's the face to face, the human interaction. You're, uh, it's hard to, to gauge sarcasm and, and comedy and uh, and conversation through just chat. Uh, so being in person really helps Among the organizations on the end user side that you talked to, is there anything that some of them are doing better than others that you wish everybody else would kind of cribble a little bit?

Yeah, I mean, I'm biased, but I really like, we're really pushing for reference architectures this year. So between now and Atlanta, uh, and North America, uh, really I've been reaching out to a lot of end users about sharing, again, not the secret sauce. We don't need all the details, but we want like high level architecture, show us the square boxes in the arrows, uh, so that way we can encourage more people to adopt the technologies and adopt, uh, cloud native in their ecosystem.

We're seeing that right now with, uh, the telcos. Uh, there's a lot of folks who, again, they haven't done a lot of this work in Cloud native. It's only just brand new for them.

Uh, but what they're getting is they're getting the confidence to be able to say, yeah, we know what, we're ready to really scale quickly and scale faster and like, bring everybody on fiber, uh, not just the, the major cities. Uh, so like this is what really gets unlocked. Uh, when we, when we share and tell, There's a lot of, uh, early stage training available here.

One of the conversations I had with some of the CIOs is like, they're struggling with, they can only afford X number of engineers. Yeah. And then they have a small army of IT administrators and they're trying to figure out how to get those IT administrators up to speed like Kubernetes.

'cause they don't all have programming expertise. Yeah. Is there a balance to be struck here and is that kind of a, a, a thing that these companies should be thinking about?

Yeah, I mean, so we had, uh, a few announcements in the keynote yesterday and, uh, or sorry, day one was a keynote and they mentioned this new tool called headlamp. Headlamp being more of a gooey interfaces for managing our platform engineering. And I think that really unlocks a lot for people.

I know a lot of people wanna be hands on keeper keyboard being your nano or your vim editor. Uh, but there are, uh, folks who really just need to get the job done, need to be in and out, need to make sure that like the, the graphs are going up into the right or at least staying stable. Uh, so for that reason, like there's more tools and more opportunity for education for folks who just need to orchestrate a platform, uh, and they get back to doing what their day job is.

So a lot of people have dual roles in some of these more organizations, some of the organizations that haven't scaled up, uh, to the level that a lot of these other companies are, are, are at. Uh, so the opportunity there is, like, we do have, again, LF education. We have the, uh, program, uh, we have training, and we also have a lot of partners with vendors that, uh, can help alleviate some of that pain.

Uh, so really what it comes down to, like if folks are in that position, uh, the best thing you do is get involved in the community. So we have a newsletter, uh, CNCF newsletter. We have, uh, the wisdom of the cloud newsletter as well.

Uh, if you just want to get up to date on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, um, we do have opportunities for you to catch up and sort of like understand what the, uh, the sort of variables and the sort of mad mad libs to plug and play what you need to do. So you mentioned that if people need help, they should contact you. How do they get you?

We email Twitter, Uh, uh, you can find me. dev is my actual URL, but, uh, b doug e is when I go by most places on the internet. All right, folks, you heard in here if you've got issues with Cloud native and Kubernetes, find him, uh, Some issues.

I'll, I'll find you some else that, that might be more expert than I am. He'll Give you the starting point. Yes.

Anyway, we'll be back in a minute. Thanks for coming. Thanks so much.