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Highly available Kubernetes with batteries for small business

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Re: Highly available Kubernetes with batteries for small business

#41
The small business buys AS/400. IBM configures it. Drop it in a closet, forget about it.

If something goes wrong it will call for help, before you even know something was wrong.

It depends on what you define a small business as though.

Back in the days these were extremely reliable. I have seen them in closets, covered with everything else you would find in a closet.

Used by everyone day in and day out, nobody knew where it was or what it was.

It also, in my opinon, had a nifty operating system with a lots of inventive ideas when it came out.

I wish they had released the OS when they discontinued the line.

Re: Highly available Kubernetes with batteries for small business

#42
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you know it, it's not really an overhead anymore, you do the same tasks as fast as without it. But you also have an easy way to scale, in a lucky chance you have to.

The overhead might get smaller but it never disappears. You'll still have maintenance and debugging issues that are specific to k8s.

True, but it also takes away some pain you'd otherwise have. I used to be in the 'Kubernetes is unnecessary overhead for most cases' camp, but since I actually started to use it I think it's a good base for even smaller setups, and I find myself prefering it to other ways of reproducably setting up infrastructure/services. Maybe that's not the case for the people posting here, but often times it seems people who argue against Kubernetes have never really used it and don't have more than a shallow knowledge.

Its hard to put into words without writing a blog post, but in my mind the 'everything is a resource' design introduces a simplicity that counterbalances the complexity that comes with it. One still has to make an informed decision, of course, and sometimes it really is not the right tool ...

Re: Highly available Kubernetes with batteries for small business

#43
Regarding all the "small business's shouldn't use Kubernetes" - it depends on the business! Certainly a small website with a mailing list is better setup on Squarespace, PaaS/SaaS etc, but there are plenty of startup ideas that either rely on complete data control, users ability to manage their own apps, or a large infrastructure for hosting. A good example is indy game developers who release their game-servers as docker containers (see: Factorio, Minecraft, etc). The big players build out their own cloud, but that is a large barrier to entry. Plenty of game developers avoid multiplayer for exactly this reason. See Slack v Mattermost or Facebook v Mastadon for another example. Plenty of this bleeds between home-hosting and small business. Zoneminder, Mattermost, Wordpress - probably replaces a large bill for most companies, and keeps them 100% compliant with things like GDPR, etc.

If small businesses _did_ have a Kube cluster in their closets, and were able to decide the appropriate use of SaaS versus on-prem, and were able to carve up that compute securely to their customers, well it would enable a whole range of companies to compete with the big platforms. This is exactly what I'm building with my startup. When there is no real difference between hosted and self-hosted, besides the power and air conditioning, a huge new market for software opens, and the platforms that have (in my opinion) "ruined" the internet will have some real competition. The Internet doesn't need blockchain or federated compute to solve this - we just need people to run server-software again! All individuals and small businesses need are really good tools - the decision re: cloud or on-prem should be dependent on engineering resources, not capital resources.

Say what you will about Kubernetes - It reminds me so much of companies looking into Linux two decades ago. Someone would always say "eh, too complex, just use IIS and call Microsoft when things are broken!". To make the world simpler, you must first make the world more complex.

Re: Highly available Kubernetes with batteries for small business

#44
I am not sure what is being solved here. As if I wouldve asked for 4 seats, instead got a mansion, even though a car would be more in budget and useful.

Are we just creating complexity for the sake of feeling we are solving something? This system would still go down if there is a fire, which is IMO more likely. Rebuilding the cluster would take time, why not solve the issue of hand-made local deployments?

Re: Highly available Kubernetes with batteries for small business

#45
post #29
post #13

I've been using docker swarm on Hetzner for my fledgling business and am quite happy with it. The main feature I use is rolling upgrades that make it very easy to deploy changes. It's simple, and has all the features I need for the stage I'm at. Once I have a more demanding infrastructure I'll probably switch over to a managed kubernetes, but those platforms have a significantly higher unit cost.

I've been using Kubernetes on hetzner that I installed with one command.

So how do you handle k8s version upgrades every three months? And please don't tell me "who needs upgrades" on a security-critical component.

Re: Highly available Kubernetes with batteries for small business

#47

Highly available web-server with batteries for small business: 1. Goto digitalocean.com or linode.com 2. Buy the smallest instance. 3. Install FreeBSD. 4. Let it run for the next 2 decades without ever needing to touch it.

What about security patches, how does it work in the FreeBSD world?

Remote exploits in apache/nginx and openssh don't come along that often.

YMMV for the appserver and its dependencies.

Re: Highly available Kubernetes with batteries for small business

#48
post #13

I've been using docker swarm on Hetzner for my fledgling business and am quite happy with it. The main feature I use is rolling upgrades that make it very easy to deploy changes. It's simple, and has all the features I need for the stage I'm at. Once I have a more demanding infrastructure I'll probably switch over to a managed kubernetes, but those platforms have a significantly higher unit cost.

With your setup, are you using a static front end web server(s?) - eg nginx - reverse proxying to the applications managed with Docker Swarm?

Re: Highly available Kubernetes with batteries for small business

#49
post #34

What is the value for a small business in Kubernetes?

A lot if you are using a managed Kubernetes solution. It is surprisingly easy and affordable to setup nowadays. We're currently running on DO and it is a pure joy. - IaC, no servers to manage (Terraform + kubectl/helm) - reasonable HA with minimal effort - easily configurable metrics (prometheus) - automated/minimal effort horizontal scaling - easy SSL certificate installation and automated renewal - operate multiple…

1. IaC / no servers isn't a plus. It's vastly easier to SSH into a server and do anything you already can on a desktop

2. So do CoLocos, but better "HA" with no effort at all

3. /var/log + bash grep

4. Reverse proxy, just add another IP address and a load balancer

5. This is true anywhere

6. Nginx and apache both do this, dead simply

7. SSH + cli editor of your choice

Kubernetes does nothing new, but pad more resumes. The UX "design" of the dev-ops world.

Re: Highly available Kubernetes with batteries for small business

#50

> This setup is not trully highly available. The whole cluster depends on the Synology as data storage. You could improve this further by replacing the centralized NAS with a distributed solution. But besides that the cluster is very solid and scalable I understand that my local harddrive with excel spreadsheets detailing my entire business along side critical software is not the best place to store the lifeblood of…

Was thinking the same. When I look at infrastructure I look at SPOF. This has such a glaring one that I think why go through this ordeal? Even managing later and trouble shooting it will be such a pain in the but...
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