Reflections on Our Progress During a Very Challenging Year

by The Container Security Blog on StackRox on November 20, 2020

As we close another inspirational KubeCon and look ahead to future gatherings, let’s also pause to reflect on the accomplishments we’ve achieved together as members of the cloud-native community.

For most of us, 2020 was one of the most challenging periods in our personal and professional lives. Most of us experienced unprecedented stress and anxiety as our lives were altered by the pandemic. Some of us experienced far worse – severe illness or grief over the loss of loved ones. We said goodbye to one of our greatest cloud-native community leaders, Dan Kohn. However, through it all, the human ability to adapt and persevere shines through. Our desire to share our thoughts and feelings, to collaborate, to create and innovate, to continue making progress, is undeniable.

Kubernetes For Production

This year, Kubernetes reached a tipping point in production usage and has likely eclipsed 80% of CNCF survey respondents using it in production. No longer a science experiment, Kubernetes is now a cloud infrastructure standard with a robust ecosystem and talent pool supporting its adoption by organizations of all sizes. With the microservices architecture, declarative definition, and immutable infrastructure models in Kubernetes, a new generation of cloud-native applications is driving greater business value through adaptation, innovation and transformation.

A Sea Change is Underway

The StackRox platform is among the new generation of cloud-native applications accelerating this sea change. This year, we’ve seen a tremendous acceleration in organizations turning to our Kubernetes-native approach for the declarative security, lower operational risk, and increased developer productivity it delivers. We’ve rolled out 16 releases this year, with game-changing features that compound the benefits of our next-gen approach to securing cloud-native apps.

StackRox Growth Fueled by Kubernetes Adoption

Our company has also made amazing progress this year. We secured a funding round and grew 240% in the first half of the year. We were selected by the U.S. Department of Defense as an accredited Kubernetes-native security platform for its Iron Bank. We launched our first open source project, KubeLinter, which garnered significant accolades and community contributions within its first week. We’ve invested in our leadership team, adding cloud-native industry veteran Dave Van Everen as our VP of Marketing. Dave has been instrumental in scaling Mirantis and Five9 from our stage to over $100M in revenue and we are thrilled to have him on the team. We’ve recently welcomed Meagen Eisenberg to our board of advisers, one of the top go-to-market talents in the world and a dynamic leader at companies like DocuSign, MongoDB and TripActions, with 13 successful exits including 3 IPOs since 2011.

Sponsorships Available

Our Commitment to Our Team

Most importantly, we’ve invested in our people. To help our team confront the challenges presented by the pandemic, we’ve implemented monthly wellness days, stipends to support work at home, additional virtual gatherings and celebrations, and more. We are continuing to improve our diversity and inclusiveness, and reinforce our company values as a way to help each other adapt and grow.

Looking Ahead

As we enter the holiday season and look forward to the new year, there is reason for optimism. Several vaccines will help us reduce the economic and public health impacts of the pandemic. Organizations will relax budget constraints, accelerate their cloud-native initiatives and scale their use of Kubernetes in production. We will see each other in person again, stronger, and more appreciative of the community we’ve built together. Together, as a cloud-native community, and as a global community, we will continue to make progress.