Unsung Hero Of the Cloud Native Revolution: Container Linux Then And Now

The presentation discusses the challenges of deploying and managing cloud-native applications in a Linux environment, and the various tools and distributions available to address these challenges.

• Linux's malleability makes it a good target for deploying cloud-native applications, but also leads to confusion and inconsistency
• Managing package dependencies and ensuring consistency across different distributions is a major challenge
• Artisanal changes made to deployments can lead to security vulnerabilities and make it difficult to track changes
• Various tools and distributions, such as Kubernetes, Fedora CoreOS, and Bottle Rocket, are available to address these challenges

The speaker describes the frustration of trying to maintain consistency across different Linux distributions, and the difficulty of tracking changes made to deployments. They note that even seemingly small changes, such as adding an iptables rule or a systemd unit file, can lead to artisanal deployments that are difficult to manage.

Back in 2013, Alex Polvi and Brandon Philips had a vision for a minimal Linux distribution: a kernel, systemd and just enough additional packages to run containers. This “CoreOS” was as much a part of the early cloud native revolution as Docker and Kubernetes, and has spawned or inspired many subsequent container-optimized Linux distributions each with its own unique place in the ecosystem. In this talk, I review what defines a container-optimized Linux and how it changes the experience of running software like Kubernetes compared with a traditional enterprise Linux. I also share a “family tree” landscape of container Linuxes widely used in the community today, compare/contrast their philosophies, and consider some of the current active areas of development and innovation in the space.