Page 11 - EngineerIT March 2022

ICT

Unlocking the value of Kubernetes

Muggie van Staden*, CEO at Obsidian Systems

ccording to research, Kubernetes is predominantly for people who build platforms, with
almost a quarter of respondents citing that they are DevOps engineers. This is hardly
Asurprising given how it has become an integral component for organisations who are
embracing multi-cloud operations and need container orchestration to streamline to the edge.
In fact, many expect the future of hybrid multi-cloud Kubernetes will combine best-of-
breed solutions from public and private clouds to guarantee long-term cost and performance
optimisations. It is all about smoothly integrating with public and private clouds while tailoring
Kubernetes to the business environment, building affordable clusters, and connecting them
throughout operations.

Understanding Kubernetes
But before we can get into the nuts and bolts of how Kubernetes can deliver A DevOps
business value, let us examine what the technology entails. engineer is an IT
Kubernetes can be defined as a portable, extensible, open source generalist who should have
platform for managing containerised workloads and services. A container a wide-ranging knowledge of
is essentially a lightweight virtual machine, with several typically both development and operations,
required to build applications or services. Another way to look at a including coding, infrastructure
container is that it provides the means to package code, runtime tools, Muggie van Staden
system libraries and configurations together. Essentially, Kubernetes can management, system
deploy anything that fits in a container. administration, and DevOps
Many consider Kubernetes to be one of the most significant toolchains. and Kubernetes spaces, there is a
advancements to happen in IT since the public cloud came into being in 2009. need to move towards ‘model-driven’
But what started as a basic container tool originally developed by Google has grown operations to deal with this sprawl.
into a cloud-native platform to change how modern software is developed and deployed. Already, people are using Kubernetes for
Furthermore, Kubernetes containers are easier to build than virtual machines. Because they are things like better configuration management
self-contained and independent, Kubernetes containers are portable and extendable. They can or as a more enhanced automation tool. It
deploy apps to public, private or hybrid clouds without disruption and at less cost. is not a case of waiting until they get to a
Initially, Google used Kubernetes to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of 200 node scale problem where current tools
containerised applications. Today it is the flagship project of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation fall apart. Some say that the 20 to 50 node
that is backed by such illustrious names as Google, AWS, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Cisco and Red Hat. cluster range is probably the sweet spot for
most people when it comes to Kubernetes.
New operations For some organisations, it makes sense to
Even though Kubernetes has its roots in the ICT industry, even traditionally conservative sectors have a lot of small clusters, one for every
like financial services are seeing the value of embracing Kubernetes. Telcos are also leveraging team or one for every project, for example.
Kubernetes in their data centres for streaming devices and doing things like scale to zero and Along with Kubernetes comes the agility to
subscription- based dynamic rollouts of content. innovate faster than ever.
Given that improved maintenance, monitoring, and automation is considered an important And then there are companies choosing
technology goal, Kubernetes has a critical role to play. It can also assist in modernising to split their Kubernetes clusters between
infrastructure and enable companies to realise faster time-to-market with their solutions. at least two zones, to give them a little bit
It is less about using Kubernetes to scale, and more about being able to effectively use agile of high availability, thinking about failure
solutions that have logging, monitoring and load balancing built in. Kubernetes is the vehicle to domains and blast radius. Now, two to five
achieve this. Using Kubernetes as the foundation, a company can collapse a plethora of tools into clusters might be about a multi-region setup
one environment and provide the flexibility they need to test fast and roll out products fast. This or compartmentalisation. An example of the
also makes Kubernetes ideal for standardising infrastructure that has become increasingly complex, latter can be having a dedicated cluster for
given the rapid push to digitally transform over the past 19 months. databases, one for all the Web apps and the
As such, the automation component of Kubernetes will become increasingly important in rest of the clusters for the more sensitive
today’s connected world. It is all about lowering operating costs while providing flexibility to apps and/or data.
remove vendor dependencies from the technology estate. Ultimately, Kubernetes is changing the
face of computing in a cloud-driven world.
Cloud focus Companies must embrace it to compete and
With the use of hybrid or multi-cloud environments becoming increasingly accepted as business remain agile. n
drivers, Kubernetes will help companies navigate some of the complexities associated with this. Scale
is an obvious one. With scale issues already being encountered in the bare metal, virtual machine, * muggie@obsidian.co.za

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