Kubernetes for personal projects? No thanks • Hacker News Board

Re: Kubernetes for personal projects? No thanks

#51

Post by Draiken » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 12:47 PM UTC

wheresvic1 wrote: post #6

Totally agree with the author, for my side projects in Node.js, I use the following: - pm2 for uptime (pm2 itself is setup as a systemd serivce, it's really simple to do and pm2 can install itself as a systemd service) - I create and tag a release using git - on the production server, I have a little script that fetches the latest tag, wipes and does a fresh npm install and pm2 restart. - nginx virtual host with ssl…

Honestly, you could do that in almost the same time on Kubernetes.

I understand why people might not want to invest the time onto learning a new technology, but that's not a reason to say it's a bad fit. If you know how to use Kubernetes, doing these bash scripts and doing a few YAML files will take basically the same time and the end result will be vastly superior on Kubernetes.

Re: Kubernetes for personal projects? No thanks

#52

Post by isugimpy » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 12:47 PM UTC

For random toy projects, spinning up a whole Kubernetes cluster is absolutely overkill (unless part of the project is learning Kubernetes). The thing is as you get further along, for some applications, it becomes harder and harder to move to a container-based design as you have to unwind all the weird dependency mappings. I've got an app I've been involved with containerizing for a client at work, and they're dead set on sticking with an Ubuntu 14.04 base container, because they legitimately don't know if it'll even function on a more modern base, and don't feel they can spare the development cycles to figure it out. Thing is, it started as a toy application, deployed to a server by manually SSHing in and doing a git pull from the repo (not even rsync!) and restarting all the services, and that's still how it's deployed in production today.

Containers (and thus Kubernetes) aren't the magical solution to every problem in the world. But they help, and the earlier you can get to an automated, consistent build/deploy process with anything that'll actually serve real customers, the better off you are. Personally, I'd rather design with containers in mind from day one, because it's what I'm comfortable with. There's nothing wrong with deploying code as a serverless-style payload, or even running on a standalone VM, but you need to start planning for how something should work in the real world as early as you can reasonably.

Re: Kubernetes for personal projects? No thanks

#53

Post by StavrosK » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 12:48 PM UTC

carlosrdrz wrote: post #41

pstadler wrote: post #36

> Do you want to do all of this because you think is fun? Or because you want to learn the technology? or just because? Please, be my guest! [...] Kubernetes is likely here to stay. If you're interested in running a cluster to undestand what the hype is all about and to learn something new, you should do it. Also, ignore everybody telling you that this platform wasn't meant for that. Complexity is a weak argument. On…

I will also invite everyone to try it and I also believe K8S is here to stay. I think K8S makes a lot of sense for lots of workloads, but I don't think it makes sense to maintain a k8s cluster to run personal projects. About complexity, what you're saying is true, but I think "once your cluster is running" is making a lot of assumptions about what is actually running in the cluster in terms of infra and what workload…

I agree with you, I think K8s is great to learn so you know what it can do, but I wouldn't use it for personal projects. For that, I recommend something like Dokku, which is very easy to get started with.

For Kubernetes, I found the docs a bit bad, the starting concepts are very easy to grok but the docs obfuscate them. I wrote a very short article on the basics [0], for anyone who might be interested in learning. After reading the article, reading the docs should be much easier, as you'll know the terms much more intuitively.

[0]: https://www.stavros.io/posts/kubernetes-101/

Re: Kubernetes for personal projects? No thanks

#54

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 12:51 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #53

carlosrdrz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will also invite everyone to try it and I also believe K8S is here to stay. I think K8S makes a lot of sense for lots of workloads, but I don't think it makes sense to maintain a k8s cluster to run personal projects. About complexity, what you're saying is true, but I think "once your cluster is running" is making a lot of assumptions about what is actually running in the cluster in terms of infra and what workload…

I agree with you, I think K8s is great to learn so you know what it can do, but I wouldn't use it for personal projects. For that, I recommend something like Dokku, which is very easy to get started with. For Kubernetes, I found the docs a bit bad, the starting concepts are very easy to grok but the docs obfuscate them. I wrote a very short article on the basics [0], for anyone who might be interested in learning. Af…

[deleted]

Re: Kubernetes for personal projects? No thanks

#55

Post by carlosrdrz » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 12:53 PM UTC

Draiken wrote: post #47

carlosrdrz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree with you, but I don't think I really missed the point of the original article. From the original article: > However popular wisdom would suggest that Kubernetes is an overly complex piece of technology only really suitable for very large clusters of machines; that it carries a large operational burden and that therefore using it for anything less than dozens of machines is overkill. I think that's probably…

I have to disagree. It doesn't introduce burden and complexity. They're already there whether you use Kubernetes or not. The difference is that if you did build it all by hand as the author said, if it ever scales, you're going to have double the job to make it scale. It's all a question of: do I think my software will succeed? If it's a hobby project that will never get big, it's not worth the hassle. If it actually…

I see what you mean, but I don't really agree. You can introduce that burden and complexity whenever you want. If you spend the start of your project working on this, you will be prepared for scaling (if you ever need it) but you could have used that time on actually working on the project and checking if you actually will need scale at some point.

I don't know about your projects, but I'm my case most (all) of them doesn't really need any kind of scale. Hell, this blog has a tiny 5$ DO machine and is still happily serving traffic from HN. I do understand not all projects are small blog instances, though :)

I guess in my case I prefer to just keep it simple and see how far I go with that setup than spending time working on making the perfectly-scalable project that is never serving more than 2 requests per second. If it ever grows, I will need to work to make it scale, sure, but on the other hand that is a good problem to have.

Anyway, I understand this is pretty subjective and depends on how you think about your projects and your requirements, so I do understand there will be people both in agreement and disagreement.

Re: Kubernetes for personal projects? No thanks

#56

Post by Annatar » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 12:55 PM UTC

yebyen wrote: post #39

Annatar wrote: post #24

"Oh man, the original article went way over the author's head." No, the author of the Kubernetes article completely, so utterly missed the point that it's not even funny: none of those Kubernetes complications are necessary if one runs SmartOS and optionally, as a bonus, Triton. Since doing something the harder and more complicated way for the same effect is irrational, which presumably the author of the Kubernetes a…

While that's great, and I thought about plugging my own containers project here too, to get it some exposure and possibly help someone (we're trying to help people get on the train, and that's commendable, I didn't downvote you) now you've gone from something bespoke to something basically singular, where Kubernetes is a leading industry standard with the weight of at least[1] 77 vendors who have sought and achieved…

"If you are on Kubernetes, then you are not locked in to any cloud provider"

...but I would be beholden to GNU/Linux and have to do the same thing I do with SmartOS in a far more complex way, built on an operating system substrate which cannot provide the reliability that I need to be able to sleep through my nights without an incident.

Kubernetes, Docker, Linux are a time sink that I can never get back, on things which Solaris solved far better and reliably 20 years ago. I don't want to go from a Pegasus to a donkey.

Re: Kubernetes for personal projects? No thanks

#57

Post by jaxtellerSoA » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 1:03 PM UTC

solatic wrote: post #21

Oh man, the original article went way over the author's head. The point of the original article was that even though Kubernetes is primarily useful for tackling the challenges involved with running many workloads at enterprise scale, it can also be used to run small hobbyist workloads at a price point acceptable for hobbyist projects. Does that mean that Kubernetes should now be used for all hobbyist projects? No. If…

>But maybe I envision my side project turning into full-time startup some day. Maybe I see all the news about Kubernetes and think it would be cool to be more familiar with it. Nah, probably too expensive. Oh wait, I can get something running for $5? Hey, that's pretty neat!

Exactly. Or maybe "I would love to advance my career and work for a larger company that is using Kubernetes, and I can get some hands on experience without breaking the bank."

Re: Kubernetes for personal projects? No thanks

#58

Post by nimbius » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 1:03 PM UTC

I work as an engine mechanic full time, and im learning programming as a hobby. Kubernetes to me is like the shade-tree mechanic vs the professional.

Professional mechanics use high grade tools that can cost thousands of dollars each. We have laser alignment rigs, plasma cutters, computer controlled balancing and timing hardware, and high performance benchmarking hardware that can cost as much as the car you're working on. We have a "Kubernetes" like setup because we service hundreds of cars a month.

The shade-tree mechanic wrenching on her fox body mustang on the other hand? her hand-me-down tool box and a good set of sockets will get her by with about 90% of what she wants to do on that car. she doesnt need to perform a manifold remap, so she doesnt need a gas fluid analyzer any better than her own two ears.

I should also clarify that these two models are NOT mutually exclusive. If i take home an old Chevy from work, I can absolutely work on it with my own set of tools. And if the shade-tree wants to turn her mustang into a professional race car, she can send it to a professional "kubernetes" type shop that will scale that car up proper.

Re: Kubernetes for personal projects? No thanks

#59

Post by doppel » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 1:07 PM UTC

I feel that Kubernetes has a lot of "upfront" cost that needs to be tackled - containerization, manifests for all the pods you want to set up, potentially setting up the right persistent storage if needed, user access, logging, etc. And this is still if you use a "hosted" solution with Amazon/Google/Microsoft, if you set it up yourself there is a ton more complexity.

Using something you are familiar with, even if it's just a 10-line bash script, a simple virtual private server and the adding an nginx config there, is usually faster than having to orchestrate everything. If you want to invest the time in setting up Kubernetes for all your personal projects, it would probably make sense.

Basically, is it worth it? https://xkcd.com/1205/

Re: Kubernetes for personal projects? No thanks

#60

Post by Draiken » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 1:07 PM UTC

carlosrdrz wrote: post #55

Draiken wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree. It doesn't introduce burden and complexity. They're already there whether you use Kubernetes or not. The difference is that if you did build it all by hand as the author said, if it ever scales, you're going to have double the job to make it scale. It's all a question of: do I think my software will succeed? If it's a hobby project that will never get big, it's not worth the hassle. If it actually…

I see what you mean, but I don't really agree. You can introduce that burden and complexity whenever you want. If you spend the start of your project working on this, you will be prepared for scaling (if you ever need it) but you could have used that time on actually working on the project and checking if you actually will need scale at some point. I don't know about your projects, but I'm my case most (all) of them…

I completely agree it's overkill to run your own cluster. That'd be good for a learning experience, but way too complex to use/maintain otherwise.

However I read somewhere you had experience with Kubernetes, right? That means there is no extra work to learn the technology.

Now let's take your blog as an example. I'm gonna guess there's an official Docker image for whatever software you use and you could create an image, deployment + service + ingress in less than an hour for it (pretty much every example out there is about how to setup a blog, heh).

If you have to do all that manually through SSH, I'd argue it takes pretty much the same time and the complexity is the same. You will simply change the tools/concepts but won't be caught by manual gotchas.