What's next for Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure?

Bill Doerrfeld | September 2, 2024

Exciting developments in cloud infrastructure are on the horizon. These fundamentally industry-altering design patterns, open-source tools, and architectures are set to address the complexity and scaling challenges of Kubernetes and evolve cloud infrastructure as we know it today. 


Very happy to share my first-ever feature on InfoWorld today, which seeks to answer 'what's next' for K8s and cloud infrastructure.


In short, we can expect a reduction of complexity in using Kubernetes, more growth in the mass enterprise market, better cross-cloud visibility with OpenTelemetry, heightened platform abstractions, inner-K8s virtualization, new modes of AI orchestration, a move toward the edge, the rise of WebAssembly and more.


As an industry, we need to get out of the weeds of YAML and "climb the ladder of abstraction," Jonas Bonér, CTO of Lightbend, says. "The next generation of serverless is that you don’t see infrastructure at all."


Read the full article to see what industry-leading experts think is on the horizon for cloud infrastructure. Thank you to everyone who contributed input to make this one possible!


Also, I'm excited to write for InfoWorld regularly, and look forward to sharing some other stories in the pipeline soon.

Read: The future of Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure
By Bill Doerrfeld February 28, 2026
While hardware usually gets the spotlight in physical AI, the real differentiator won't be hardware. It'll be the models.
By Bill Doerrfeld February 27, 2026
In the latest DirectorPlus, Workato's CTO explains how MCP-enabled integration catalyzed internal AI usage and ROI.
By Bill Doerrfeld February 18, 2026
My latest on InfoWorld reviews MCP servers from 5 major cloud providers
By Bill Doerrfeld February 18, 2026
How are organizations actually using agentic knowledge bases in practice? My article for The New Stack looks at six emerging patterns.
eBPF in Production Report
By Bill Doerrfeld February 12, 2026
My report for the eBPF Foundation explores enterprise eBPF case studies, production deployments, and real business outcomes across cloud-native environments.
Close-up of whole bean coffee Bottomless
By Bill Doerrfeld February 10, 2026
Longtime Bottomless user sharing why I love automated coffee delivery triggered by a smart scale, plus a referral link for a free first bag.
By Bill Doerrfeld February 5, 2026
MCP servers can quickly drain context windows without guardrails. Thankfully, there are ways around this, say the experts.
By Bill Doerrfeld February 4, 2026
It may seem like AI agents are suddenly doing everything across industries. But in reality, the pace of agentic AI is moving carefully, and very deliberately, in highly regulated environments like finance and banking.
By Bill Doerrfeld February 3, 2026
My latest feature for InfoWorld explores when it makes sense to scrape public web sources, and when official API integrations are the better choice for external data.
By Bill Doerrfeld January 30, 2026
What does it mean to go nano with your software updates — to "carve with a scalpel" instead of swinging a hammer? For my latest DirectorPlus piece, I caught up with Chainguard VP Dustin Kirkland to dig into that idea.