Two tech trends with a shot at dominating next-generation software applications are containers (a virtualized method for running distributed applications) and serverless computing. Kubernetes’ popular container management platform is maturing and adopting community standards from top players, while the serverless sector remains a Wild West of disparate initiatives. Will software developers welcome Kubernetes’ adult supervision or play hooky in serverless?

Kubernetes wants to bring standards to containers to make them simple — even boring — to use. “Boring is the new black,” said John Furrier (@furrier, pictured, center), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio. 

Abstracting away lower-level complexities so developers can focus on the app itself is the ticket in tech today, Furrier said during this week’s KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event in Austin, Texas. Along with co-host Stu Miniman (@stu, pictured, right) and guest host Justin Warren (@jpwarren, pictured, left), chief analyst at PivotNine Pty Ltd., Furrier gauged how far “boring” could take Kubernetes in the race to win favor with developers.

What is serverless?

Last April, John Gossman of Microsoft Corp.’s Azure told theCUBE that while containers are a pretty advanced way to deploy code, serverless functions are a cut above them. “With Azure Functions, it’s like, why do any of that? Just write a function,” he said.

Serverless computing is no doubt a hot item in modern app development. However, “Serverless does not eclipse all of the cloud-native and Kubernetes stuff here,” Miniman said.

Part of the reason for that may be that Kubernetes is getting boring (in a good way), while in the serverlesss camp, “‘standards’ is apparently a dirty word,” Warren explained. “There are still a whole bunch of foundational questions about what severless actually is.”

Is it functions as a service? Is it more than that? Does Amazon Web Services Inc. S3 object storage count as serverless, because users don’t worry about which server they’re hitting? There is still work to be done simply defining what serverless is, Warren said.

Despite the anarchy (or because of it), serverless stands as good a chance as Kubernetes of attracting the most cutting edge cloud app developers today.

Kubernetes tries to bury Kubernetes

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation, home of Kubernetes, is deliberately encouraging the community to come together on standards and build on top of Kubernetes, Warren said. “They’re trying to put different services on top of Kubernetes, so essentially Kubernetes goes away and just becomes invisible.”

For example, Metaparticle is a standard library for cloud-native applications on Kubernetes. It basically puts extra layers of abstraction on top of Kubernetes, Warren explained. A new service mesh framework proposes to improve communication among piece parts in Kubernetes.

The CNCF and the Kubernetes community are keeping competition on low and dialing up collaborative efforts to standardize. Furrier summed up the attitude: “Don’t screw it up — we’ve got a good thing going on here with Kubernetes.”

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