Success in the cloud continues to be elusive for many organizations. A recent Forbes article describes how financial services firms are struggling to succeed in the cloud, citing Accenture Research that found that only 40% of banks and less than half of insurers fully achieved their expected outcomes from migrating to cloud. Similarly, a 2022 KPMG Technology Survey found that 67% of organizations said they had failed to receive a return on investment in the cloud.

Among the benefits D2iQ customers gain by deploying the D2iQ Kubernetes Platform (DKP) is an immutable and self-healing Kubernetes infrastructure. The benefits include greater reliability, uptime, and security, reduced complexity, and easier Kubernetes cluster management. The key to gaining these capabilities is Cluster API (CAPI). DKP uses CAPI to provision and manage Kubernetes clusters, which imposes an immutable deployment model and enables state reconciliation for Kubernetes clusters.

General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) is among the major systems integrators that have chosen D2iQ to create Kubernetes solutions for their U.S. military customers. I spoke with Todd Bracken, GDIT DevSecOps Capability Lead for Defense, about the reasons GDIT chose D2iQ and the types of solutions his group was creating for U.S. military modernization programs using the D2iQ Kubernetes Platform (DKP).

The latest release of the D2iQ Kubernetes Platform (DKP) represents yet another significant boost to DKP’s multi-cloud and multi-cluster management capabilities. D2iQ Kubernetes Platform (DKP) 2.6 features the new DKP AI Navigator, an AI assistant that enables DevOps to more easily manage Kubernetes environments. As Forbes noted in Addressing the Kubernetes Skills Gap, “The Kubernetes skills shortage is impacting companies across sectors.”

The U.S. Department of Defense’s Software Modernization Strategy calls for gaining a competitive advantage to achieve strategic and tactical superiority. Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and implementing zero trust security are critical parts of the movement to modernize the U.S. military. To this end, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks issued a memorandum in February 2022 establishing the formation of the DoD Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO).

The practice of cybersecurity is undergoing radical transformation in the face of new threats introduced by new technologies. As a McKinsey & Company survey notes, “an expanding attack surface is driving innovation in cybersecurity.” Kubernetes and the cloud are infrastructure technologies with many moving parts that have introduced new attack surfaces and created a host of new security challenges.

When you think of air-gapped security, you imagine a protective distancing that separates your sensitive data from those who would steal it. In practice, the separation is a disconnection from the Internet. If no one can get to your data, no one can steal it. However, air-gapped deployments that are completely disconnected from the Internet are not the case in all instances. It’s true that many clusters are fully air-gapped, particularly in classified government installations.

D2iQ is excited to be participating in the Department of the Air Force Information Technology and Cyberpower (DAFITC) 2023, in Montgomery, Alabama, from August 28-30. The theme of this year’s DAFITC conference is “Digitally Transforming the Air & Space Force: Investing for Tomorrow’s Fight.” Digital transformation of the Air Force and Space Force is part of a wider modernization effort that is accelerating across all U.S.

DZone has released the results of its latest annual container management survey, entitled “Containers: Modernization and Advancements in Cloud-Native Development.” The survey findings reflect the experiences of developers and engineers in their deployment of containerized applications.

As cyber attacks have become ever more sophisticated, the means of protecting against cyber attacks have had to become more stringent. With zero trust security, the model has changed from “trust but verify” to “never trust, always verify.” Joining D2iQ VP of Product Dan Ciruli for an in-depth discussion of zero trust security was Dr. John Sahlin, VP of Cybersolutions at General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), and David Sperbeck, DevSecOps Capability Lead at GDIT.