KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe – The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, today announced that Mercedes-Benz Tech Innovation GmbH on behalf of Mercedes-Benz AG has won the CNCF End User Award in recognition of its achievements in cloud native development and notable contributions to the cloud native ecosystem.
Mercedes-Benz Tech Innovation GmbH is a wholly-owned subsidiary that develops technological innovations, digital products, and advanced software solutions exclusively for Mercedes-Benz AG. Today, the company’s stack for Mercedes-Benz AG runs largely on free and open source software (FOSS), including a wide range of CNCF projects, such as Kubernetes, Prometheus, Helm, Open Policy Agent, containerd, and more.
“We’re honored to be recognized by CNCF for our efforts, joining the likes of innovators like Apple, Didi, Intuit, Spotify, and Zalando,” said Joerg Schueler, CIO at Mercedes-Benz Tech Innovation. “We’ve worked hard over the past eight years to provide an ecosystem that empowers our application teams. Today each team can get its own Kubernetes cluster, driven by APIs and self-service open source tools, making managing Kubernetes a community effort.
In addition, with our OpenSource Manifesto, we have anchored FOSS in our corporate culture at Mercedes-Benz.”
Mercedes-Benz Tech Innovation was an early adopter of Kubernetes. It began experimenting with the technology in 2015 after it was open sourced in 2014. After seeing the flexibility and scalability that Kubernetes and cloud native could enable, the company underwent a complete digital transformation from fully closed and proprietary software. A small team of developers built a new grassroots cloud native deployment, running nearly 1,000 Kubernetes clusters in production with Cluster API. Over the last year, this platform has transformed from an On-Premise solution into a Multi-Cloud solution. CNCF’s Annual Survey for 2022 shows that only 50% of end users are running more than 10 clusters in production.
“Cloud Native End Users play a pivotal role in the cloud native ecosystem by providing valuable feedback and upstream contributions to open source projects,” said Taylor Dolezal, Head of Ecosystem at CNCF. “We are continually impressed by Mercedes-Benz Tech Innovation’s dedication to cloud native and open source technology. Their team’s unwavering efforts in spearheading the adoption of new technologies for critical infrastructure in production environments set them apart.”
In recent years Mercedes-Benz Tech Innovation GmbH was constantly one of the top end user companies that contributed to Kubernetes worldwide. The company also actively contributes to the Cluster API project and more.
Mercedes-Benz is one of more than 145 organizations in the CNCF End User Community, which meets regularly to share adoption best practices and feedback on project roadmaps and future projects for CNCF technical leaders to consider.
