London calling – a KubeCon retrospective

This year, we were pleased to send our colleagues Nico Meisenzahl, Philip Welz, and first-time attendee Stephan Hüttner to KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025 in London. The event was an incredible experience where we connected with fascinating individuals and gained valuable insights into the latest trends in the cloud-native ecosystem. Here are some of the highlights of the whole KubeCon week.

Our KubeCon week in London

Cloud Native Rejekts

Cloud Native Rejekts always feels like a class reunion, bringing together familiar faces and new connections from the cloud-native community. Organized primarily by Microsoft Azure, this unique event offers a second chance to speakers whose proposals didn’t make it to KubeCon + CloudNativeCon. With its open and welcoming atmosphere, it’s the perfect setting to meet new people, exchange ideas, and stay updated on the latest trends in the cloud-native ecosystem. One of our favorite aspects of the event is the 5-minute lightning talks – short, impactful sessions that ignite curiosity and inspire excitement about fresh ideas.

Azure Day with Kubernetes

Azure Day with Kubernetes provided an excellent opportunity to dive into the latest advancements in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and engage directly with members of the AKS product teams through interactive roundtable discussions. The Microsoft teams shared valuable insights into the future of AKS, and the networking product group truly impressed us with their outstanding work on new features and improvements. Here are some of the highlights we’d like to share:

Here is a list of the new features that are currently in preview:

  • Agentless runtime VA – scan containers running in AKS for CVEs with the agentless runtime VA
  • Security Guardrails – gate your deployments based on vulnerabilities
  • eBPF-based host routing – increased pod throughput by 25%
  • Overlay support for the Application gateway for containers
  • Container Insight multi-tenant logging – segment logging per team or namespace
  • Layer 7 (L7) network policies in Advanced Container Networking Services + Cilium clusters
  • Cilium supported WireGuard – a new feature that allows you to use WireGuard for encryption between nodes in an AKS cluster

One of the most notable highlights was the unexpected announcement of Microsoft GitOps ArgoCD. The managed ArgoCD AKS extension, a highly anticipated feature, perfectly aligns with Microsoft’s GitOps strategy for AKS. You can sign up here for the private preview.

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025

Last year, KubeCon EU made waves as the largest event in its history. This year, it shattered its own record, becoming the biggest KubeCon EU ever! With over 12,500 attendees from across the globe, the event highlighted the surging popularity and widespread adoption of CNCF projects as the go-to platform for cloud-native applications.

The energy and enthusiasm at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon were palpable, reflecting the vibrant and ever-growing cloud-native community. Over the course of three action-packed days, we had the opportunity to dive deep into the latest trends, innovations, and challenges shaping the future of cloud-native technologies.

Here are our key takeaways and insights from this year’s event:

  • After celebrating Kubernetes‘ 10th anniversary last year, the CNCF is gearing up to mark its own 10th birthday in 2025
  • Remember WASM, being a hot topic last year, WASM seemed to have taken a backseat this year
  • AI remains buzzing, with advancements in Multi-Cloud Platforms (MCP) and intelligent Agents driving innovation. However, the spotlight at KubeCon is shifting toward observability — ensuring AI systems are transparent, reliable, and optimized and securing AI workloads against vulnerabilities and attacks. As AI matures, balancing innovation with trust and safety has become the new priority
  • Zero Trust, Policy-as-Code, and supply chain security are no longer overlooked. Security is making a powerful comeback, rising like a phoenix from the ashes of the past. The focus has expanded beyond just securing clusters to safeguarding the entire supply chain – both software and hardware. This shift emphasizes signing and attesting to every component, from hardware to software, ensuring a fully secure and trusted ecosystem.
  • Multi-cluster orchestration is rapidly gaining momentum, with tools like Crossplane, Cluster API, and KubeFleet leading the charge in this evolving space. As organizations prioritize scalability and flexibility in cloud-native environments, the demand for efficient multi-cluster management continues to grow. Don’t miss the session „KubeFleet – Multi-Cluster Application Management“ for deeper insights into this exciting topic.
  • And the Winner Is… Platform Engineering! Platform engineering remains the hottest topic in the cloud-native ecosystem – and it’s clear it’s here to stay. With demand for platform engineers soaring, the community is abuzz with excitement about this rapidly growing field. This year’s KubeCon spotlighted platform engineering in a big way, featuring a dedicated Platform Engineering Day, a community-organized Platform Engineering Breakfast every morning during KubeCon, and the launch of two new platform engineering certifications from the CNCF. One session you won’t want to miss is „Lessons Learned by the LEGO Group“ which promises valuable insights from a leading innovator in the space.

Summary

Like all great things, this incredible week filled with cloud-native innovations and exciting news has come to a close. We had a blast being part of it – connecting with the community, soaking up insights, and enjoying the energy all around. See you in Amsterdam for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2026!

If you would like to find out more details or get started with the implementation, please feel free to contact us! Also, don’t miss following our blog for more cloud-native insights!