Containers have become a popular technology for enterprises that need to create agile, scalable and reliable applications. As they’re moving containerized workloads into production, many are adopting Kubernetes for container orchestration. While containerization enables DevOps to deploy software fast and efficiently, it also creates new security challenges, especially for those who’ve accelerated their implementation of this complex technology.

The Kubernetes system has surged in popularity in the last few years, and the pace hasn’t stopped. Just recently, adoption grew almost 50 percent within a span of only six months, according to our recently published survey of nearly 400 IT professionals. The survey, titled “The State of Container and Kubernetes Security,” found that 86 percent of the respondents are using Kubernetes, compared to 57 percent at the end of 2018.

Kebernetes 1 k8s adoption growth graph

Despite the fact that every major cloud provider offers a managed Kubernetes service, a large portion of respondents self-manage their Kubernetes clusters. This is likely because it gives organizations additional flexibility to easily port their environment to a different platform.

kerbernetes 2 common orchestration platforms graph

The robust growth in Kubernetes reflects the rapid adoption of containerized applications in general. The technology has gone mainstream, and developers and engineers are finding new ways to use it. Gartner estimates that by 2022, more than 75 percent of organizations will run containerized apps in production, compared to only 30 percent today. Despite a growing maturity in many aspects of containerized workloads, however, organizations are not making equal advances in their security approaches. And now that many app developers are running containers at scale, security issues will only escalate.

Growing Security Concerns

Our survey found that security has remained the top concern for IT professionals whose organizations have a container strategy. Additionally, the concern is growing — 40 percent of those surveyed said their company didn’t adequately invest in (Read more...)