10 Years Since Kubernetes Launched at DockerCon | Docker

It is not often you can reflect back and pinpoint a moment where an entire industry changed, less often to pinpoint that moment and know you were there to see it first hand.

On June 10th, 2014, day 2 of the first ever DockerCon, 16:04 seconds into his keynote speech, Google VP of Infrastructure Eric Brewer announced that Google was releasing the open source solution they built for orchestrating containers: Kubernetes. This was one of those moments. The announcement of Kubernetes began a tectonic shift in how the internet runs at scale, so many of the most important applications in the world today would not be possible without Docker and Kubernetes.

You can watch the announcement on YouTube.

We didn’t know how much Kubernetes would change things at that time. In fact, in those two days, Apache Mesos, Red Hat’s GearD, Docker Libswarm, and Facebook’s Tupperware were all also launched. This triggered what later became known by some as “the Container Orchestration War.” Fast forward three years and the community had consolidated on Kubernetes for the orchestration layer and Docker (powered by containerd) for the container format, distribution protocol, and runtime. In 2017,  Docker integrated Kubernetes in its desktop and server products, and this helped cement Kubernetes leadership.

Why was it so impactful? Kubernetes landed at just the right time and solved just the right problems. The number of containers and server nodes in production was increasing exponentially every day. The role of DevOps put a lot of burden on the engineer. They needed solutions that could help manage applications at unprecedented scale. Containers and their orchestration engines were, and continue to be, the lifeblood of modern application deployments because they are the only real way to solve this need.

We, the Docker team and community, consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to have played a role in this history. To look back and say we had a part in what has been built from that one moment is humbling.

… and the potential of what is yet to come is beyond exciting! Especially knowing that our impact continues today as a keystone to modern application development. Docker enables app development teams to rapidly deliver applications, secure their software supply chains, and do so without compromising the visibility and controls required by the business.

Happy 10th birthday Kubernetes! Congratulations to all who were and continue to be involved in creating this tremendous gift to the software industry.

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