CNCF Cloud Native Foundation

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) is a subfoundation of the Linux Foundation founded in 2015 to host and sustain cloud native open-source projects including Kubernetes, Prometheus, Envoy, and etcd. With over 700 member organizations including Google, Microsoft, AWS, Cisco, and Red Hat, CNCF has become the central hub for cloud native ecosystem development. Key activities: project hosting (CNCF provides governance, marketing, certification, and community building for graduated, incubating, and sandbox projects including Kubernetes, Prometheus, Envoy, Istio, containerd, Helm, and Argo). CNCF Landscape (maintained visual map of over 1,000 cloud native projects categorized by function including orchestration, service mesh, storage, networking, security, CI/CD, and observability). Kubernetes Certified Service Provider (KCSP) program certifying companies providing Kubernetes support and consulting. Certified Kubernetes (conformance testing program ensuring Kubernetes distributions and managed services pass e2e tests for portability and compatibility across providers). CNCF certifications (Certified Kubernetes Administrator CKA, Certified Kubernetes Application Developer CKAD, and Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist CKS professional certifications). Community events (KubeCon plus CloudNativeCon annual conferences in North America, Europe, and China with over 15,000 attendees). Cloud Native Trail Map (recommended path for adopting cloud native technologies from containerization through orchestration to serverless). Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) governs technical direction, project lifecycle, and graduation criteria. Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for topics including security, storage, networking, and observability. End user community (CNCF End User Community with over 180 organizations sharing best practices).