The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project and organisation created with the purpose of advancing the development of ‘cloud native’ applications and services, has announced the joining of new members, the creation of a formal open governance structure, and new details about the associated technology stack.
The formation of the CNCF was announced earlier this year at the OSCON conference, with the stated purpose of supporting software development and deployment in a ‘cloud native’ environment that is “container-packaged, dynamically scheduled and micro services-oriented”.
The CNCF website states that the foundation intends to focus on the development of open source technologies, reference architectures, and shared standards for cloud native applications. Organisations from across the industry are coming together to formally invest in this work, and a list of new members who have recently joined the foundation can be found within the associated announcement on the CNCF website.
The CNCF has also announced its ratified open governance structure, which includes a Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) that will direct technical decisions, oversee working group projects and manage contributions to the code base; and an End User Advisory Board and Board of Directors to guide business decisions and ensure alignment between the technical and end-user communities.
The nominations are currently open for TOC members, and any interested parties are encouraged to contact the CNCF. Additional information on this process can be found on the cncf-toc mailing list. Technical contributions are open to anyone, and are currently being submitted to the CNCF TOC for review. Alex Polvi, CEO of CoreOS, has stated that CoreOS intend to donate key open source projects to the foundation:
[...] CoreOS is looking forward to working together with the cloud native industry leaders to continue innovating so the world can be successful with running and managing container-enabled infrastructure. We intend to donate key open source projects to the foundation as part of our commitment in working together in a vendor neutral way so that we as an industry can provide the benefits of cloud native computing to all.
Expected technical contributions include Google’s Kubernetes, an open source orchestration system for Docker containers; CoreOS’s etcd, a distributed consistent key-value store for shared configuration and service discovery; and CoreOS’s flannel, an etcd-backed virtual overlay network for containers. The CNCF website also states that Supernap is preparing a large compute farm that can be used for advancing CNCF technologies. This infrastructure will be used to run multiple scalability and performance tests and deploy various software stacks easily and at scale.
The CNCF is initially planning to address open source technologies at the orchestration level, followed by the integration of hosts and services by defining API's and standards through a ‘code first approach’. The CNCF is also working with other Linux Foundation Collaborative Projects, including the Open Container Initiative (OCI) on its container image specification, and the Cloud Foundry Foundation.
InfoQ sat down with Christopher Liljenstolpe, Director of Solutions Architecture at Metaswitch and Evangelist at Project Calico, and asked about his organisation’s involvement with the CNCF.
InfoQ: What will Project Calico be adding to the CNCF?
Liljenstolpe: Project Calico has already been collaborating with many of the CNCF members (technology suppliers and customers) to deliver a "cloud native" networking infrastructure and insure that the interface between the cloud OS/orchestrator and the network provider is properly aligned with the cloud development/deployment/operations model. By bringing many of those efforts under one 'roof', the entire ecosystem will benefit.
InfoQ: How much influence do you believe the CNCF TOC will have on the community as a whole?
Liljenstolpe: Although the TOC hasn't been selected yet, the community that makes up the CNCF is, by and large, biased toward real-world experience and solving real-world problems. If that approach is the approach of the TOC (which is the intent), then the TOC should be able to keep the CNCF work focused and pertinent.
InfoQ: How important are the roles of the End User Advisory Board and Board of Directors to the CNCF?
Liljenstolpe: As always, the best technical solutions are useless if they aren't solving real-world problems, or removing constraints imposed by the existing solution set. To date, the end-users involved in the CNCF are in the lead in actually deploying and using these cloud-native infrastructures. Their insights into what works, what doesn't, and why will be critical to keeping the CNCF on track.
Additional information on the CNCF can be found on the foundation’s website, and organisations can apply to join the foundation via the online form located within the “Join Us” section of the website.