Key Cloud Native Updates: AWS re:Invent, KubeCon, Rancher 2.3.3 & Open‑Source Picks

AWS re:Invent 2019 Highlights

AWS held its annual cloud computing conference from December 2‑6 in Las Vegas. Over 2,500 technical sessions covered data analytics, architecture, artificial intelligence, machine learning, containers, IoT and more. Notable first‑day releases included Amazon SageMaker Operators for Kubernetes , enabling users to deploy SageMaker jobs via native Kubernetes APIs and manage them with kubectl, and Amazon EKS on AWS Fargate , allowing Kubernetes pods to run on Fargate using a virtual kubelet integration.

2020 KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe

The conference is scheduled for March 30 – April 2, 2020 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Submission deadlines for talks are set for December 4.

Rancher 2.3.3 Release

Rancher Labs announced version 2.3.3 on November 28, which adds default support for Kubernetes 1.16.

Upstream Kubernetes Developments

Enhance ContainerStats message in CRI‑API : Extends the ContainerStatus interface to expose additional metrics such as CPU usage, memory usage, process usage and network usage.

Update Server‑Side Apply KEP : Introduces an upgrade path from client‑side apply to server‑side apply and outlines rollback considerations.

apimachinery: switch wait to use context.Context : Replaces the traditional stop channel in the wait package with context.Context for cancellation handling.

feat: make delete protection to namespace kube-node-lease : Adds a protection mechanism that prevents accidental deletion of the kube-node-lease namespace.

Open‑Source Project Recommendations

elseyhightower/kubernetes-the-hard-way : A comprehensive hands‑on guide for building production‑grade Kubernetes clusters, aimed at operators and engineers seeking deep understanding of cluster components.

digitalocean/clusterlint : A linting tool that checks Kubernetes clusters for best‑practice compliance across resources, security, and reliability dimensions.

Weekly Reading Recommendations

Gardener Project Update : Describes SAP’s multi‑cloud, multi‑cluster management system built with CRDs, supporting major cloud providers such as Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Azure, and GKE.

The Current State of the State for Cloud Native Storage : Reviews the evolution of Kubernetes storage support and future directions for the CSI interface, including snapshots and cloning.

Design and Thoughts on an Edge Computing Platform Based on Alibaba Cloud CDN : Explores how CDN’s massive scale and compute power can serve as a foundation for edge computing, emphasizing cloud‑edge collaboration.

Alibaba Cloud’s Large‑Scale Kubernetes Cluster Management Practices : Shares practical experiences of managing tens of thousands of Kubernetes clusters on Alibaba Cloud.

From Zero to K8s: Deep Dive into Linux Containers : Introduces container fundamentals using Docker, covering images, engines, namespaces, and cgroups.

Is Service Mesh Just Old Wine in a New Bottle? : Reflects on the maturity of Service Mesh projects in 2019, with insights from Alibaba’s implementation experience.

Serverless Kubernetes Scenarios and Architecture Analysis : Discusses the convergence of containers and serverless computing, addressing scalability, elasticity, cost, and efficiency challenges.

Kubernetes Vertical Pod Autoscaling: Future Directions : Explains the limitations of Horizontal Pod Autoscaling for certain workloads and outlines the community’s roadmap for the Vertical Pod Autoscaler component.