Empowering Platform Engineers: Upbound’s 2024 Achievements

As we close out 2024, we reflect on an extraordinary year of growth, innovation, and community engagement at Upbound. This year, we introduced groundbreaking tools and features to empower platform engineers, simplified cloud management, and more. Beyond our product milestones, we deepened our connections with the global cloud-native community, championed open-source collaboration, and shared knowledge at key industry events.

Here’s a comprehensive look at the strides we’ve made in 2024:

Major Product Highlights from 2024

April 2024: Upbound Now Everywhere

The launch of Upbound Now Everywhere introduced Connected Spaces and Cloud Spaces, enabling platform teams to manage Crossplane-powered control planes across diverse environments, including single-tenant infrastructure within their own networks or multi-tenant deployments in public clouds.

This breakthrough brought new levels of operational flexibility. Teams could now host control planes in environments that met stringent compliance requirements while still leveraging Upbound’s centralized management. It also allowed for faster time-to-value by simplifying deployment processes across cloud and on-premises environments.

June 2024: Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Spaces 1.4

With the introduction of Upbound RBAC, teams gained fine-grained control over access management. Role-based permissions ensured that engineers could tailor access to sensitive systems based on specific responsibilities, enhancing both security and compliance. Paired with

Spaces v1.4.0, which introduced performance and usability improvements, this release made it easier to manage growing platform operations securely and efficiently.

July 2024: Crossplane Configuration Explorer and Spaces 1.5

Managing and debugging configurations became significantly simpler with the release of the XRM Explorer. This powerful tool provided a visual way to inspect and manage resource types, relationships, and dependencies, helping teams quickly identify and resolve issues. Updates to Spaces v1.5.0 continued to improve usability and ensure seamless workflows.

These advancements translated directly into increased productivity, faster debugging, and better overall reliability for critical infrastructure.

August 2024: Query API, Reconciliation Controls, and Spaces 1.6

The launch of the Query API provided unparalleled visibility into resources across all control planes. This centralization simplified troubleshooting and management, enabling engineers to query for specific details across multiple environments with ease. The addition of reconciliation controls empowered teams to pause workloads during investigations or maintenance, offering greater operational flexibility.

By reducing the complexity of managing distributed systems, these features significantly enhanced the efficiency of cloud operations.

November 2024: New Builder Tooling and Core Platform Services

We launched powerful new builder tooling and core platform services to improve control plane development and operations. Updates included automated Backup and Restore for data continuity, a centralized Telemetry Collector for observability, and enhanced tools for treating control planes as software projects. These features simplify management and increase the security and resilience of Crossplane deployments, helping teams scale their platforms more effectively.

November 2024: New Developer Experience

We also introduced a reimagined developer experience for building with Crossplane. Enhancements included an upgraded Up CLI for rapid project scaffolding, VSCode integration for real-time validation and linting, and a live Crossplane testing service in Upbound Cloud. These tools enable platform engineers to streamline workflows, improve productivity, and build control planes with confidence. 

With free access available through our Individual Plan, these updates reflect our commitment to empowering developers at every stage of their journey.

November 2024: Enhanced Upbound Official Packages

Updates to our Official Packages prioritized security and reliability. By incorporating distroless images, Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs), and cryptographic signing, we ensured that these packages met the most rigorous enterprise-grade standards. These improvements gave customers peace of mind, knowing they could confidently use verified, secure components in their infrastructure.

Community Engagement and Industry Leadership in 2024

Beyond our product innovations, 2024 was a year of deepened community engagement and thought leadership. Upbound actively participated in key industry events and launched initiatives to empower platform engineers and foster collaboration within the cloud-native ecosystem.

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe: Paris

In March, our team attended KubeCon Europe in Paris, engaging with attendees at the Crossplane and Upbound booths. The event highlighted the growing adoption of Crossplane, sparking insightful discussions about its potential and integration into enterprise workflows. This provided an excellent platform to share our vision and gather feedback from a diverse audience of cloud-native practitioners.

Introducing ‘Level Up with Crossplane’

In April, we introduced Level Up with Crossplane, a virtual event series designed to help platform engineers, DevOps teams, and SREs maximize their success with Crossplane. The inaugural event in May featured an in-depth overview of the Crossplane 1.15 release, hands-on tutorials for implementing resource compositions, and expert insights into testing strategies.
Attendees appreciated the actionable guidance and real-time Q&A sessions, making these events a valuable resource for teams adopting or scaling their use of Crossplane. As this series evolves, it continues to empower users with the skills and knowledge needed to build resilient, scalable platforms.

KubeCon North America: Salt Lake City

In November, Upbound was proud to have a strong presence at KubeCon North America in Salt Lake City. Our team delivered over ten talks, workshops, and panel discussions, covering topics like extending Crossplane functionality and building advanced compositions. The conference also served as a celebration of Crossplane’s journey toward CNCF Graduation, a milestone that underscores the project’s maturity and adoption in production environments worldwide.

To mark the occasion, we hosted an evening event themed “Countdown to CNCF Graduation,” bringing together customers, contributors, and the broader community to celebrate the progress Crossplane has made. The energy and collaboration at KubeCon reinforced our commitment to open-source innovation and the incredible people driving it forward.

Conclusion

2024 was a transformative year for Upbound, marked by relentless innovation, impactful product launches, and active participation in the cloud-native community. These achievements have further cemented our position as a leader in Universal Cloud Computing, enabling platform teams to unlock operational efficiency, scalability, and security at unparalleled levels.

As we look ahead to 2025, we’re committed to delivering even greater value to our customers. Whether through innovative new features, enhanced security, or deeper community engagement, we remain dedicated to empowering platform engineers to succeed in the era of Universal Cloud Computing. Thank you for being part of this remarkable journey—we’re excited to see what we can achieve together in the year ahead!

If you want to see this all in action, sign up for our individual tier. It’s forever free and gives great insight into all of these new features and updates!