The Kubernetes community remains focused on updating the platform despite a steep uptake curve that would seem to indicate a level of maturity not in need of any more updates. That update focus is set for another shot in the arm as the community gets set to gather for its KubeCon + CloudNativeCon EU event.

Janet Kuo, a software engineer at Google and co-chair of the event, said that the community is always working to stabilize Kubernetes so that it can provide a reliable platform for production environments. This has become core to the community’s quarterly release cycle. (If you think that update cycle is too fast, Kuo noted that the community was initially pushing for a two-week update schedule.)

One of the most recent pushes – and an expected focus of the upcoming event – is toward greater support for stateful workloads running on Kubernetes. She noted that the most recent Kubernetes 1.14 update did have a focus on increasing storage support for persistent local volumes. This makes it easier for Kubernetes to plug into external storage services like Rook and Gluster.

However, “we keep hearing people saying that running stateful workloads in Kubernetes is hard, but the storage team in Kubernetes has done a bunch of improvements around that,” she said.

This ties back to containers being developed to support stateless applications that did not require stored data to operate or support a running application. These were typically web services that acted as a go-between for any storage needs. Any actual storage within a stateless container was ephemeral, and thus a restart flushed out stored data.

However, as container use cases have evolved, stateful models have matured. These allow containers to maintain stored data even if a container is restarted and can support more developed applications. This model has become critical for enterprises that are running more advanced applications within containers.

It has also drawn considerable interest in developing platforms that can provide containers with a stateful storage option. More than two dozen storage-related Kubernetes vendors are part of Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s landscape map.

The Kubernetes community is also working on more robust extensibility support for the platform to deal with an increase in use cases that are built on Kubernetes. “We expect more people to build frameworks on top of Kubernetes,” she said.

That extensibility support is tied to work on increasing the reliability of Kubernetes in production environments. Kuo explained that the various Kubernetes Special Interest Groups (SIGs) work on those updates as part of the release cycle, but that “sometimes you only discover these issues in real-world use cases and it’s hard to simulate those in a test environment or with a test cluster.”

Kuo said the Kubernetes community is also increasing its focus on broadening participation in the ecosystem. She cited work around the recently launched Kubernetes Enhancement Proposal (KEP) as part of that focus.

Stephen Augustus, senior cloud native architect at VMware, described KEPs as a “process documents that capture the various elements and motivations for a change to Kubernetes and include important references, such as documentation for enhancements, graduation criteria, and test plans.”

KEPs were initially a recommended framework to work through specific issues, but with the latest Kubernetes 1.14 release are now required for all proposed enhancements.

“We want to encourage people to participate,” Kuo said. “And using KEPs is a way to help manage that participation.”

That broader participation is also being pushed internally. Kuo explained that the community is looking to have its SIGs work closer together to solve Kubernetes operational problems. As an example, she cited a current workaround that deals with a known cascading failure issue that can impact container clusters as being an inefficient way to deal with that problem.

“We want to get multiple SIGs together to find a better way to fix these issues instead of having them come up individually with their own way to put out the fire,” Kuo said.