When working with cloud native technologies, it is easy to get deep into one part of the system and lose sight of the bigger picture. On the other hand, the big picture can be difficult to make out because there are such a huge number of considerations, use cases, and CNCF projects. How can we navigate this? Brace yourself for a whirlwind adventure!

During our KubeCon talk, “Choose Your Own Adventure: The Treacherous Trek to Development”, Viktor Farcic and I are going to do our best to cover ALL of the CNCF projects that one might consider when planning how to get an application from a developer’s laptop into a development environment. Projects such as Cloud Native Buildpacks, Harbor, Carvel, Lima, Crossplane, cdk8s, Helm, DevSpace, and Telepresence – just to name a few. It is a tall order!

In only 35 minutes, we will discuss the CNCF projects that build application images from source code, the image registry choices, the different CNCF technologies you can use to help write your application configuration, different strategies for setting up a database for development, the projects that manage database schema, and the CNCF tools you can use to help develop an application that is running on Kubernetes.

Whew, that’s a lot!

We will playfully give a broader sense of what types of technologies are out there, and what factors to consider when making these system design choices. And if we don’t quite get it all done in time - at least we'll have fun trying!

But wait!

What is a KubeCon talk without a live coding demo? Let’s choose a single technology from each step of the way and build out a demo as we go! There is probably enough time for that. So it isn’t just about Viktor and me, then, you are also on the hook to help get this application to a development environment in time! We will rely on participation from YOU, the audience.

Throughout the presentation, you can use a voting app to cast your vote for which technology you prefer for each system design choice, and the poll results decide which path our hero application will take. And as I teach about all of the projects, Viktor will build out a demo on the fly, implementing the chosen technologies! What could go wrong?

This talk will discuss one opinionated path to development (chosen by the audience!) while lightheartedly acknowledging that there is a much bigger picture, and that this particular route is one of an infinite number of possible paths.

Can we navigate CNCF projects and avoid pitfalls and dead-ends to get our application to development before the session time elapses?

Join us if you dare! This talk is not for the faint of heart!

Are you experiencing FOMO because you can’t make it to KubeCon? Check out You Choose! – our 'Choose-Your-Own-Adventure'-style video series!

If you’re joining us at KubeCon this year, stop by either Upbound booth S65 or VMware booth P3 to chat with us more about our session! See more Upbound sessions and what we’re up to this year at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2023.