Nomad vs. Kubernetes

#1

Post by capableweb » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 9:00 AM UTC

Re: Nomad vs. Kubernetes

#2

Post by tazjin » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 10:09 AM UTC

As a Xoogler it's always seemed weird to me how Kubernetes was compared to Borg. Kubernetes covers a much larger set of things than Borg alone, and I don't necessarily think that's for the better. Being written in a language that isn't well-suited to large projects and refactoring efforts doesn't help either.

Nowadays I don't have use-cases for either, but from playing around with Nomad it felt a lot more "Borg-y" than Kubernetes ever did to me. I rarely hear anything about the Hashicorp alternative for service discovery and such though, so it would be interesting how that compares.

Re: Nomad vs. Kubernetes

#3

Post by DeathArrow » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 10:12 AM UTC

Nomad seems much simpler to use and manage if you need to do simpler things, but Kubernetes allows you to do more.

We use Kubernetes instead of Nomad at work but we are also using Consul in the Kubernetes cluster.

Re: Nomad vs. Kubernetes

#4

Post by capableweb » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 10:20 AM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #3

Nomad seems much simpler to use and manage if you need to do simpler things, but Kubernetes allows you to do more. We use Kubernetes instead of Nomad at work but we are also using Consul in the Kubernetes cluster.

> Nomad seems much simpler to use and manage

Agree, Nomad is so easy to get started and because of the simplicity of the architecture, very easy to maintain as well.

> but Kubernetes allows you to do more ... We use Kubernetes instead of Nomad at work

Same here, Kubernetes at work, Nomad for personal projects. But I have yet to find anything I cannot do in Nomad that you normally do in Kubernetes. Could you provide some specific things you've tried to get working in Nomad but couldn't (or simply doesn't exists in Nomad), while it worked in Kubernetes? Would be useful to know before I get too deep into Nomad.

Re: Nomad vs. Kubernetes

#5

Post by _hzrk » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 10:21 AM UTC

tazjin wrote: post #2

As a Xoogler it's always seemed weird to me how Kubernetes was compared to Borg. Kubernetes covers a much larger set of things than Borg alone, and I don't necessarily think that's for the better. Being written in a language that isn't well-suited to large projects and refactoring efforts doesn't help either. Nowadays I don't have use-cases for either, but from playing around with Nomad it felt a lot more "Borg-y" th…

> Being written in a language that isn't well-suited to large projects and refactoring efforts doesn't help either.

I know that Borg was written in Java and Kubernetes in Go. Though the latter had a reputation in the beginning as a systems programming language, its purpose was actually to build large-scale cloud infrastructure projects with it and it proved formidably well suited for the task. It compiles fast, anyone can read it, good tooling and it is efficient for the layer on which it is meant to be deployed. Go, as Java is one of the most productive languages in use today, judging by the ecosystems they have spawned.

Re: Nomad vs. Kubernetes

#6

Post by sofixa » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 10:21 AM UTC

If someone's interested, i wrote a deeper dive into the matter a few months back, with concrete examples:

https://atodorov.me/2021/02/27/why-you-should-take-a-look-at...

Re: Nomad vs. Kubernetes

#7

Post by streetcat1 » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 10:23 AM UTC

I assume that Nomad is simpler since the other features are provided by other hashi corp tools (e.g. secrets, auth, etc).

Re: Nomad vs. Kubernetes

#8

Post by tazjin » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 10:24 AM UTC

_hzrk wrote: post #5

tazjin wrote: post #2

As a Xoogler it's always seemed weird to me how Kubernetes was compared to Borg. Kubernetes covers a much larger set of things than Borg alone, and I don't necessarily think that's for the better. Being written in a language that isn't well-suited to large projects and refactoring efforts doesn't help either. Nowadays I don't have use-cases for either, but from playing around with Nomad it felt a lot more "Borg-y" th…

> Being written in a language that isn't well-suited to large projects and refactoring efforts doesn't help either. I know that Borg was written in Java and Kubernetes in Go. Though the latter had a reputation in the beginning as a systems programming language, its purpose was actually to build large-scale cloud infrastructure projects with it and it proved formidably well suited for the task. It compiles fast, anyon…

Borg is C++.

Re: Nomad vs. Kubernetes

#9

Post by johnnycerberus » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 10:27 AM UTC

tazjin wrote: post #8

_hzrk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being written in a language that isn't well-suited to large projects and refactoring efforts doesn't help either. I know that Borg was written in Java and Kubernetes in Go. Though the latter had a reputation in the beginning as a systems programming language, its purpose was actually to build large-scale cloud infrastructure projects with it and it proved formidably well suited for the task. It compiles fast, anyon…

Borg is C++.

There you Go (pun intended). Go even replaced a low-level language like C++ and achieved the same result in the end. I don't know why I thought it's Java, probably the first Kube was initially in Java. It's even better that they managed to pull that off.

Re: Nomad vs. Kubernetes

#10

Post by capableweb » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 10:30 AM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #6

If someone's interested, i wrote a deeper dive into the matter a few months back, with concrete examples: https://atodorov.me/2021/02/27/why-you-should-take-a-look-at...

Thank you for that post, I found it a couple of months ago and helped a lot in making my decision to go with Nomad over Kubernetes!