Microsoft joins Cloud Native Computing Foundation to accelerate adoption of cloud native technologies

Microsoft today announced that they have joined the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) as a platinum member to accelerate enterprise adoption of cloud native technologies and practices. CNCF is a project of Linux Foundation that hosts and provides governance for a wide range of projects including Kubernetes, Prometheus, OpenTracing, Fluentd, Linkerd, containerd, Helm, gRPC, and many others.

Microsoft last year hired Brandon Burns, co-founder of Kubernetes and since then they have been announcing support for Kubernetes in various ways. Last year, Kubernetes 1.4 release became a part of Azure Container Service (ACS). Recently, Microsoft acquired Deis and released an open source project called Draft for developing a new application for Kubernetes.

“Microsoft is committed to helping organizations of all sizes achieve more, and we see cloud native technologies and open development as a way to enable this,” said Corey Sanders, Partner Director, Microsoft. “We have contributed across many cloud native projects, including Kubernetes, Helm, containerd, and gRPC, and plan to expand our involvement in the future. Joining the Cloud Native Computing Foundation is another natural step on our open source journey, and we look forward to learning and engaging with the community on a deeper level as a CNCF member.”

“We are honored to have Microsoft, widely recognized as one of the most important enterprise technology and cloud providers in the world, join CNCF as a platinum member,” said Dan Kohn, Executive Director of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. “Their membership, along with other global cloud providers that also belong to CNCF, is a testament to the importance and growth of cloud native technologies. We believe Microsoft’s increasing commitment to open source infrastructure will be a significant asset to the CNCF.”

Gabe Monroy, Lead PM for Containers on Microsoft Azure and former Deis CTO, will be part of CNCF’s Governing Board. Over the past few years, Microsoft has become one of the biggest open source contributors and they have the most open source contributors on GitHub.