Since it was first released in 2014, there has been no escaping Kubernetes. With its huge community of contributors, users and vendors, the project has fast become a driving force in the IT plans of many large enterprises undergoing a digital transformation. But how much do you actually know about where Kubernetes fits into those plans and how it relates to other important pieces of the digital transformation puzzle?
In this episode of the Cloud Native in 15 Minutes podcast, Joe Beda seeks to answer those questions. Beda, who was one of the creators of Kubernetes at Google and is now a principal engineer at VMware, tackles a broad range of issues, including: the differences between “cloud” and “cloud-native”; the shifting lines between open source and commercial technologies; and how different users should expect to interact with a system like Kubernetes.
Here are a couple of quotes from the episode, where Beda explains defines some important terms and talks about the path from zero to Kubernetes.
‘Cloud’ is not necessarily ‘cloud-native’
“In my mind, 'cloud' is running on somebody else’s infrastructure, or at least something that somebody else is managing for you …
“ … 'Cloud-native' in my mind, then, is: … How do you actually take those new capabilities that cloud offers and apply those to your organization, and then take that to the fullest extent that makes sense over time?”
…
“The power of systems like Kubernetes is that it decouples those things … so that you can be cloud-native without running on cloud. You can be cloud-native, even if you’re actually running on-premises, right next to your Oracle database, mainframe, or what have you.”
Flexibility means you can take your time
“The flexibility of Kubernetes means [users] don’t have to be purists. There’s room to compromise as they look to adapt their old stuff into their new stuff. We have a very large financial services company, and they had a home-built, big-dataish, batch-processing system. They’re looking to move that stuff to Kubernetes, but there’s a lot of roadblocks if they were going to go to a purist type of route. But the flexibility of Kubernetes means they can start getting used to it, they can start moving forward, without having to necessarily rip and replace everything that they’ve been doing.”
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Learn more about Kubernetes
If you’re interested in learning more about Kubernetes, check out the following resources:
Cloud native operations with Kubernetes and CI/CD [webinar]
Deploying Kubernetes to drive business, not complexity [webinar]
3 reasons behind T-Mobile’s success with Kubernetes
Kubernetes: One cluster or many?
Kubernetes: 3 commonly asked questions
Meet the PKS Family: Kubernetes Done Your Way
