Unifying Brownfield VMs, AI, and Containers on a Single Control Plane by Myroslav Mishov

Myroslav Mishov introduces the concept of a unified declarative control plane that brings together brownfield virtual machines, AI workloads, and containerized applications under a single Kubernetes-based platform. In this talk, he addresses the "two-stack problem" that forces platform engineers to maintain separate worlds: declarative Kubernetes for modern apps and imperative virtualization platforms for legacy workloads. Myroslav explains how brittle virtualization APIs that break backward compatibility during upgrades create a heavy "platform tax," and how a unified approach can eliminate this burden. Using CozyStack (CNCF Sandbox) as a reference model, he demonstrates how to wrap legacy workloads in the stability of the Kubernetes API, replacing fragile integration scripts with standard Kubernetes operators. He covers managing databases, VMs, networks, and storage using the same declarative patterns as microservices, achieving extreme performance with sub-millisecond storage latency. He also explores how to architect a unified hardware layer where GPUs can be dynamically allocated to legacy VMs or tenant Kubernetes clusters for AI inference. If you work in platform engineering, cloud infrastructure, site reliability engineering, or AI operations, this talk offers a practical vision for eliminating the platform tax of managing VMs and containers on separate stacks, and provides insights into building architectures that support both brownfield and cutting-edge AI workloads. Myroslav Mishov is a Sovereign Cloud Architect and Principal SRE with 16 years of deep infrastructure experience. He holds all five CNCF Kubernetes certifications (KCNA, CKA, CKAD, KCSA, CKS), earning the distinction of Kubestronaut status. He is a member of the KubeCon Program Committee, an engineering leader, and the founder of Tech Evolvers Inc. Recorded live at Kubernetes Community Days Texas on May 15, 2026, at the TCEA Conference Center in Austin, Texas. Kubernetes Community Days Texas is a community-driven CNCF event focused on learning, collaboration, and open source connection across the cloud native ecosystem. Thank you to our sponsors for making this event possible: https://community2.cncf.io/events/det... Learn more about KCD Texas: https://kcdtexas.org Follow KCD Texas: @KCDTexas