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Why is Kubernetes getting so popular?

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Re: Why is Kubernetes getting so popular?

#191

Post by gopalv »

verdverm wrote: post #120
tristor wrote: post #118

The simple answer is that Kubernetes isn't really any of the things it's been described as. What it /is/, though, is an operating system for the Cloud. It's a set of universal abstraction layers that can sit on top of and work with any IaaS provider and allows you to build and deploy applications using infrastructure-as-code concepts through a standardized and approachable API. Most companies who were late on the Clo…

Yes, people ought to do a side by side comparison of a new user learning to K8S v AWS v GCP before claiming Kubernetes adds more complexity than it returns in benefits. Remember the first time you saw the AWS console? And the last time?

> Remember the first time you saw the AWS console? And the last time?

There was a time in between for me - that was Rightscale.

For me, the real thing that k8s bring is not hardware-infra - but reliable ops automation.

Rightscale was the first place where I encountered scripted ops steps and my current view on k8s is that it is a massively superior operational automation framework.

The SRE teams which used Rightscale at my last job used to have "buttons to press for things", which roughly translated to "If the primary node fails, first promote the secondary, then get a new EC2 box, format it, install software, setup certificates, assign an elastic IP, configure it to be exactly like the previous secondary, then tie together replication and notify the consistent hashing."

The value was in the automation of the steps in about 4 domains - monitoring, node allocation, package installation and configuration realignment.

The Nagios, Puppet and Zookeeper combos for this was a complete pain & the complexity of k8s is that it is a "second system" from that problem space. The complexity was always there, but now the complexity is in the reactive ops code, which is the final resting place for it (unless you make your arch simpler).

Re: Why is Kubernetes getting so popular?

#192

Post by bulldoa »

ithkuil wrote: post #141
tombert wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swarm is still supported and works. I have it running on my home server and love it. Kubernetes is fine, but setting it up kind of feels like I'm trying to earn a PhD thesis. Swarm is dog-simple to get working and I've really had no issues in the three years that I've been running it. The configs aren't as elaborate or as modular as Kubernetes, and that's a blessing as well as a curse; it's easy to set up and adminis…

> setting it up kind of feels like I'm trying to earn a PhD thesis. The kind of people who has to both set the cluster up and keep it up and also has to develop the application and deploy it and keep it up etc is not the target audience. K8s shines when the roles of managing the cluster and running workloads on it are separated. It defines a good contract between infrastructure and workload. It lets different people…

Do you have a recommended tutorial for engineer with backend background to setup a simple k8 infra in ec2, I am interested in understanding devops role better

Re: Why is Kubernetes getting so popular?

#193

Post by merb »

Phrodo_00 wrote: post #152
kelnos wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that there are people that claim that k8s adds a ton of complexity to your environment. But if you compare k8s alone with managing your infrastructure using (non-k8s) AWS or GCP primitives, you'll find that the complexity is similar.

While that's true on the managing instances side, you also need to actually deploy the infrastructure to manage them (If you're not using some PaaS offering). You don't need to do this for other IaaS. Honestly the last time I looked at k8s was like 5 years ago, but back then it looked like a pretty big pita to admin.

> but back then it looked like a pretty big pita to admin

- well it's also a pita to update services without a downtime. - and it sucks to update operating systems without a downtime. - sometimes you reinvent the wheel, when you add another service or even a new website

however with k8s everything above is kinda the same, define a yaml file, apply it, it works.

and also k8s itself can be managed via ansible/k3s/kops/gke/kubeadmin/etc... it's way easier to create a cluster and manage it.

Re: Why is Kubernetes getting so popular?

#194

Post by bulldoa »

p_l wrote: post #43
closeparen wrote: post #26

What does the Kubernetes configuration format offer over configuration management systems like Ansible, Salt, Puppet, Chef, etc?

Having extensively used Chef and K8s, the difference is that they try to deal with chaos in unmanaged way (Puppet is the closest to "managed"), but when dealing with wild chaos you lack many ways of enforcing the order. Plus they don't really do multi-server computation of resources. What k8s brings to the table is a level of standardization. It's the difference between bringing some level of robotics to manual loadi…

>Now I'm thinking of deploying k8s at home

Are we talking about k8 base on your own server rack at your house?

Re: Why is Kubernetes getting so popular?

#195

Post by frompdx »

yongjik wrote: post #176
verdverm wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people ought to do a side by side comparison of a new user learning to K8S v AWS v GCP before claiming Kubernetes adds more complexity than it returns in benefits. Remember the first time you saw the AWS console? And the last time?

Hmm really? My experience is that, with k8s I end up learning all the complexities of k8s in addition to AWS. Besides, personally I find AWS console much easier to understand. I don't get why people hate it.

> I don't get why people hate it.

Because it is hard to manage the configuration. It's why tools like terraform exist.

Anecdote. I worked for a small company that was later acquired. It turned out one of the long time employees had set up the company's AWS account using his own Amazon account. Bad on it's own. We built out the infra in AWS. A lot of it was "click-ops". There was no configuration management. Not even CloudFormation (which is not all that great in my opinion). Acquiring company realizes mistake after the fact. Asks employee to turn over account. Employee declines. Acquiring company bites the bullet and shells out a five figure sum to employee to "buy" his account. Could have been avoided with some form of config management.

Re: Why is Kubernetes getting so popular?

#196

Post by dijit »

geggam wrote: post #85
mrweasel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that like us, you spend the last 10 - 12 years deploying IPv6 and currently running servers on IPv6 only networks, the Kubernetes/Docker network stack is just plain broken. It can be done, but you need to start thinking about stuff like BGP. Kubernetes should have been IPv6 only, with optional IPv4 ingress controllers.

You mean you dont like 3+ layers of Nat VIA iptables ?

That's already happening anyway.

Re: Why is Kubernetes getting so popular?

#197

Post by gobins »

kgraves wrote: post #102

As a manager i've heard in all my meetings about 'kubernetes', had a look at it and have always been questioning the cost to manage this. What is the cheapest way to setup a production kubernetes on a cloud provider?

At this point, most big cloud providers cost almost the same but in terms of maturity, google’s offering is still ahead. I have not tried out digital ocean’s hosted solution, but the might be the cheapest.

Re: Why is Kubernetes getting so popular?

#198

Post by verdverm »

yongjik wrote: post #176
verdverm wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people ought to do a side by side comparison of a new user learning to K8S v AWS v GCP before claiming Kubernetes adds more complexity than it returns in benefits. Remember the first time you saw the AWS console? And the last time?

Hmm really? My experience is that, with k8s I end up learning all the complexities of k8s in addition to AWS. Besides, personally I find AWS console much easier to understand. I don't get why people hate it.

How do you view all the VMs in a project across the globe at the same time?

Do you need to manage keys when ssh'n into a VM?

Do you know what the purpose of all the products are? If you don't know one, are you able to at least have an idea what it's for without going to documentation?

The have also directly opposed many efforts for Kubernetes, even to their own customers, until they realized they couldn't win. Only then did they cave, and they are really doing the bare minimum. The most significant contribution to OSS they have made was a big middle finger to Elastic search...

Re: Why is Kubernetes getting so popular?

#199

Post by d23 »

sev wrote: post #177
tristor wrote: post #118

The simple answer is that Kubernetes isn't really any of the things it's been described as. What it /is/, though, is an operating system for the Cloud. It's a set of universal abstraction layers that can sit on top of and work with any IaaS provider and allows you to build and deploy applications using infrastructure-as-code concepts through a standardized and approachable API. Most companies who were late on the Clo…

I think this is a good answer. I'll add that as soon as you need to do something slightly more complex, without something like k8s you aren't going to be happy with your life. With k8s, it's almost a 1 liner. For example, adding a load balancer or a network volume or nginx or an SSL cert or auto scaling or...or...or...

Come on. What? Setting up a load balancer or nginx is considered complex now?

Re: Why is Kubernetes getting so popular?

#200

Post by gobins »

spyspy wrote: post #101
shakil wrote: post #99

Call me biased [1] but K8s will take over the world! Yes you get containers and micro-services and all that good stuff, but now with Anthos [2] its also the best way to achieve multi-cloud and hybrid architectures. What's not to like! 1. I work for GCP 2. https://cloud.google.com/anthos/gke

Is there any benefit of Anthos over deploying straight to GKE if you're already bought into GCP? We've had this debate several times recently and can't come up with a good answer.

You get gitops style config management of your clusters with Anthos.
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