As widespread as Kubernetes has become in container orchestration for enterprise data management technology, its success is also heavily dependent on the ability to manage complexity and raise the level of innovation to meet networking needs. The community of engineers surrounding Kubernetes has focused on building new developer tools to address pain points in information technology organizations, which ties in neatly with the mission of KubeCon conference co-chair Michelle Noorali (pictured).

“I mostly work on developer tools that are open-source, which help people use containers and Kubernetes a little more easily,” said Noorali, senior software engineer at Microsoft Corp. “These problems are really hard, and it’s good to learn from different organizations that have come across problems in this space before.”

Noorali stopped by the set of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event in Austin, Texas, and spoke with co-hosts John Furrier (@furrier) and Stu Miniman (@stu). They discussed emerging new tools inside the Kubernetes community and the prospects for monetization.

Service mesh measures traffic

One of the emerging new tools for the cloud-native stack is the service mesh, a layer for managing communication between apps. A key function of the service mesh is to measure traffic as it moves across Kubernetes clusters, with the goal to provide more reliability and stability.

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation recently announced the addition of a new hosted project involving Lyft’s Envoy service mesh as a data proxy for microservices communication. “Service meshes have allowed engineers at Lyft to understand where their failures happen,” Noorali explained. “You’re basically extracting the network layer and allowing more transparency into it.”

Another emerging tool in the Kubernetes community involves pluggable architecture. This week, Microsoft announced the Virtual Kubelet, a connector for Kubernetes that can target runtime. The idea is to give companies flexibility to expend pieces of software with modular components that can perform one operation or service really well.

“We shouldn’t limit you to just what we think is the right solution to a problem,” Noorali said.

A number of small and middle-sized companies are beginning to build monetizable services around Kubernetes. This has also increased developer involvement in the orchestration technology.

“Being involved helps give you a perspective to see where gaps are and come up with those services that are profitable,” Noorali said. “I think this space can be very lucrative based on the number of people here.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event.

Photo: SiliconANGLE