How do you recognize which container platforms are most suitable for your business needs? And how do you make the right conclusion about container orchestration like Kubernetes to operate at scale and accelerate innovation? Read Here
Suppose your organization wants to succeed in today's dynamic, hyper-accelerated digital economy. In that case, you need to operate like a start-up, which means continuously rethinking how you design, develop and manage applications. Organizations now realize the value of this same principle of change. Now, a growing number of tech- teams adopt development tools like Kubernetes to create cloud-native apps that work consistently and coherently across private, public, and hybrid clouds. What are Cloud-native applications, you ask? They are a collection of small, autonomous, and loosely coupled services. They intend to deliver well-recognized business value, like the ability to incorporate user feedback for continuous improvement rapidly. In short, developing apps in a cloud-native fashion is a way to expedite up building new applications, optimize existing ones, and connect them all. It intends to deliver apps users want at the pace a business needs.
But how do you recognize which container platforms are most suitable for your business needs? And how do you make the right conclusion about container orchestration to manage your containers' lifecycles, enabling you to operate at scale and accelerate innovation?
Containers are Linux
It goes without saying that the operating system (OS) matters when you are running containers, possibly even more than it does for your legacy application environments. Preferably, your applications need to be built to run on Linux as well. This allows containers to leverage some essential capabilities available within Linux. Containers rely on key Linux kernel features such as control groups and namespaces to isolate the running applications inside these containers.
Even the tools used to manage the container lifecycles work best with Linux. Presently, Kubernetes, built on Linux concepts, is the leading container orchestration platform, and it uses Linux based tooling and application programming interfaces (APIs) to manage the containers.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes has seen a sharp rise in its popularity, but there's still some confusion around its precise significance. On a basic level, Kubernetes serves as the application that runs your containers, but actually, Kubernetes is a bundle of utilities or APIs. Kubernetes is this extensive set of APIs that explains how a group of microservices running in container silos on a group of servers can coordinate to work together and share services and resources.
One noteworthy fact is that Kubernetes only supplies the APIs, the orchestration, scheduling, and resource management. There's a significant uplift to get from Kubernetes to a complete container application platform. To have an entire administration platform, you'll need a couple of basic building blocks like the operating system underneath, container components of a registry, networking, storage and monitoring, coupled with a way to integrate continuous integration (CI) or continuous delivery (CD).
Kubernetes Platforms - 4 C's
With so many container orchestration tools to choose from, and just as many considerations when deciding which tool will serve your organization and your current application development needs–the best. The following review will help that decision
- Code – the kind of code contributions that are being made
- Customers – who are the real customers using the provided solution?
- Cloud – This distribution of Kubernetes runs precisely where, and where can you use it?
- Comprehensive – is the platform an extensive portfolio of products and solutions tied together that fits your entire team's needs, including developers, and the scalability you require?
The Developer Factor
Moving to Kubernetes means adopting a platform, and it will require the collaborative cross-functional effort across your existing departments. Be sure to secure developer buy-in as a crucial part of your Kubernetes deployment plan.
Developers want tools and platforms that help them to do their work faster. Therefore, it helps to plan out ways to ensure Kubernetes is more manageable, or at least not more challenging than what they're currently working with. It is also a worthwhile idea to enable the tools that your developers are already accustomed to or want to use for Kubernetes.
While downloading components from Kubernetes.io may seem like the more straightforward way to enterprises who are contemplating to develop their own cloud technology, it's a much more challenging path for anyone who just wants to use a cloud. Since Kubernetes is a distributed system, correct installations and configurations are much more complex and require more in-depth knowledge than installing software on a single machine.
And despite ample support for Kubernetes across clouds, all clouds are distinct. At a fundamental level, Kubernetes should operate more or less the same way across cloud providers. But there can be functional variances.
Enhance your infrastructure with Kubernetes
To take full advantage of your cloud infrastructure, you need to implement an efficient and effective orchestration tool like Kubernetes. Do not miss out on containerization benefits with any ordinary tool. If you are interested in an agile solution that promises an excellent return on investment, then Kubernetes is for you.
We at VEXXHOST are certified Kubernetes and offer Kubernetes Enablement for your OpenStack private cloud. From helping you with its deployment to management and following through with updates, we will be your side at every step. Get in touch with our experts to know how Kubernetes can enhance your cloud setup and business.
