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Lewis Sampson, United Kingdom Research and Innovation, STFC, DAFNI, lewis.sampson@stfc.ac.uk

Over the past year or so, I have been bringing together Kubernetes (K8s) experts and interested colleagues from across the Scientific Computing Department (SCD) at STFC to form a collaborative internal community. As momentum grew, the group naturally expanded to include neighbouring institutes such as RAL Space and the Rosalind Franklin Institute (RFI). Working with Laura Shemilt, Alex Lubbock, and Piper Fowler‑Wright, we have established the foundation of the Cloud Native Special Interest Group (CNSIG), supported through an SSI-funded fellowship. Together, we delivered our first K8s workshop at RSECon25.

The RSECon session was extremely well attended—so much so that in-person participants had to join from their laptops due to room constraints. As well as the positive response, there was a growing interest within SCD to offer an updated, internally focused version of the workshop. In February, Lewis and Piper delivered this new session to 50 SCD staff members, resulting in another successful and engaging knowledge‑sharing event.

A key aim of the CNSIG initiative is to provide high‑quality, accessible training resources that work equally well during hybrid events or fully asynchronously. For anyone interested in trying out the material themselves, we encourage you to explore CAKEBox, which offers a self‑contained environment for hands‑on learning.

As part of his CAKE Fellowship, I am is planning to fund and deliver additional workshops and create more resources. I will aim to cover similar themes—aimed at helping researchers bridge the gap between academic experiences of Kubernetes and the broader, rapidly evolving world of cloud‑native platforms. You can catch myself and Piper at upcoming events such as Durham HPC Days, and other sessions listed on the CAKE events page.