The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on how nearly everyone around the world conducts their day-to-day life. This obviously also extends to the software developer and cloud native community, which is typically viewed as a solitary environment that would seem to be immune from outside influence.

Of course, software developers are people, too, and if anything, these external disruptions are likely to have a larger impact on work that is often times most easily accomplished when outside influences are minimized.

One example of that impact was the recent delay in the Kubernetes project releasing its latest update. Since its 1.2 release back in 2016, the project has released a new iteration like clockwork every three months. Sure, that was great for advancing the platform and a challenge for enterprises trying to stay up to date, but it was at least consistent.

However, for the most recent 1.19 release, the project was forced to delay that push for two months from what should have been mid-year to the end of August.

Taylor Dolezal, lead on the Kubernetes 1.19 release and a developer advocate at HashiCorp, explained in an interview that contributors to the release were provided with 40% more time to work on their specific features due to combination of COVID-19 and protests around the country against police brutality.

“Due to these events, we made the decision to adjust our timeline and allow [special interest groups], working groups, and contributors more time to get things done,” Dolezal said. “The extra time also allowed for people to take time to focus on their lives outside of the Kubernetes project, and ensure their mental well-being was in a good place.”

Dolezal explained that this timing jolt was met by acclaim from the broader community.

“Contributors are the heart of Kubernetes, not the other way around,” Dolezal said. “The Kubernetes code of conduct asks that people be excellent to one another and despite the unrest in our world, we saw nothing but greatness and humility from the community.”

More broadly, the COVID-19 pandemic is leaning on organizations to accelerate their decisions on implementing cloud-native platforms to hasten their cloud journey.

Kelsey Hightower, staff developer advocate at Google Cloud, earlier this year used the term “forcing function” to describe how the health crisis was forcing organizations to make technology decisions. He explained that organizations have typically only made hard decisions when an outside force required immediate actions.

“I think for COVID-19, it was a big forcing function,” Hightower said. “You don’t get to ask for six months, you don’t get to ask for an 18-month delay, it’s not up to you, actually. It is what it is and you have no choice. So once you take the choices off the table I think that’s what forces people to innovate.”

Hightower added that while some people might do their best work while procrastinating, the COVID-19 situation means “nope, you got to pick one. No one’s going into the office so you have to choose. … This is not a decision you can make in the next 18 months. Buy one now, and then learn how to use it. So you need that forcing function.”

Jamie Dobson, CEO of Container Solutions, concurred, adding that organizations will find this sort of timing pressure a necessary evil.

“Without that forcing function, there is no rabbit hole to go through. You will not find the chaos. Nobody does this. Nobody moves to cloud native unless there’s a good [reason],” Dobson said.

The ongoing pandemic does seem to be forcing that decision-making process toward cloud native and a move into the cloud.

According to a recent survey from Codefresh, 58% of DevOps professionals said they planned to move some of their infrastructure from their on-premises infrastructure to the cloud due to the pandemic. And 17% of those respondents said they planned to now move their entire stack to the cloud.

“In total, about 75% of respondents said that they are moving at least part of their infrastructure to the cloud as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, representing a dramatic shift in strategy and further adoption towards the cloud,” the firm noted.

Similar findings were found by DigitalOcean. A survey of its users noted that 62% of respondents said that they have expanded or upgraded their cloud usage during the pandemic, while only 2% have contracted their usage. Nearly three-quarters of respondents also said that they have maintained or increased their hiring targets as a result of COVID-19.

However, not everyone is expected to benefit.

451 Research recently noted that there were 550 discrete vendors included in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s (CNCF) landscape taxonomy of its cloud native ecosystem. It noted that up to half of those vendors, especially the smaller players, could be squeezed out due to the ongoing pandemic.

“Short term, we expect at least 50% of these vendors to see material contraction of their revenue profile, and they may need significant interventions (stimulus grants, credit extensions, loans, layoffs, etc.) to survive,” the firm noted in its report. “Depending on their cash on hand, burn rate, convertible pipeline, and existing revenue stream, it's likely that COVID-19 will, unfortunately, thin the herd, especially where they have no revenue diversification, or where their business model involves lots of high-touch integration, for example.”

Some have already cashed out. Rancher Labs, for instance, was snapped up by SUSE in a deal that removed one of the more established Kubernetes distributors from the map.

Despite the potential loss of players in the space, 451 Research predicts the cloud-native ecosystem will see increased usage tied to the ongoing pandemic.

“We expect that the COVID-19 impact on cloud-native technologies will end up, in aggregate, to be positive,” 451 Research noted in a report. “The 'cloud' sits strategically at the top of the list of IT technologies viewed as most transformative, and any work in progress is prone to acceleration, not retrenchment, for those for whom the short-term negatives of COVID-19 can and will be absorbed.”