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This article is about the five things you must know before using K8S. The editor thinks it is very practical, so I share it with you. I hope you can get something after reading this article. Let's take a look at it with the editor.

Today, Kubernetes has become a popular container orchestration and scheduling tool, and many IT analysts have put forward profound suggestions on when companies should adopt Kubernetes. However, like all other software platforms, Kubernetes is not a panacea for everyone. I am more inclined to think that people sometimes exaggerate the role of Kubernetes so much that they have the illusion that they can't leave Kubernetes when in fact Kubernetes is much more complex than their real needs.

To analyze the extent to which people's real needs match Kubernetes, I analyzed five things that enterprises must consider before adopting Kubernetes choreography.

What is Kubernetes?

If you focus on containers, you probably know that Kubernetes is an open source tool for container orchestration that automates important tasks such as starting containers, stopping containers, and load balancing between different instances of the same container.

In short, the main purpose of Kubernetes is to minimize the administrative workload that engineers have to perform manually and to help enterprises run complex containerized applications on a large scale by simplifying container operations.

Key elements in deciding whether or not to adopt Kubernetes

Based on the original intention of Kubernetes, if you like automation and hate performing repetitive tasks manually, then Kubernetes is an excellent choice for you.

This is an important prerequisite for you to decide whether or not to adopt Kubernetes, but you cannot decide whether or not to adopt Kubernetes based on this "premise" alone. There are other important factors you need to consider and weigh before adopting Kubernetes.

1. The infrastructure scale of Kubernetes

The size of your infrastructure is one of the key factors that determine whether Kubernetes can be used well for you.

Kubernetes was originally designed to coordinate containers distributed in a really large environment, which often means that enterprises should have dozens of host servers. Based on past implementation experience, if there are less than 50 servers in the infrastructure, you may not have enough resources to take advantage of the full benefits of Kubernetes.

This is not to say that Kubernetes cannot run on a smaller infrastructure. In fact, you can run Kubernetes on a single host if you like. However, because one of the goals of Kubernetes is to provide high availability by distributing containerized applications across a large number of clusters, you cannot enjoy some of the value of Kubernetes if you have only a small number of servers.

In addition, given the complexity of setting up and maintaining Kubernetes, if your infrastructure is too small to fully meet Kubernetes's promise of high availability, then perhaps you should not devote too much time and effort to Kubernetes.

For smaller infrastructure, you can use simpler container orchestration tools, or cloud-based container services such as AWS ECS with built-in orchestration.

2. Kubernetes operating system environment

Kubernetes is mainly a Linux technology. Although Kubernetes can be used to manage containerized applications on hosted Windows servers, these applications run as so-called worker nodes within a cluster of Kubernetes servers. However, the primary server or primary node hosting Kubernetes core services must be Linux.

Therefore, if your store is centered on Windows, then Kubernetes is not your best choice. But you can choose Rancher to easily introduce the advantages of Kubernetes to Windows and greatly reduce the complexity of using it.

3. Install and set up Kubernetes

Before you decide to adopt Kubernetes, you also need to evaluate the amount of work time you can put into this project.

The normal open source version of Kubernetes lacks built-in applications and does not provide an installation that works for all default configurations. Before the cluster is up and running, you need to spend a lot of time writing and adjusting the configuration file from scratch. Therefore, the process of installing and configuring Kubernetes can be a daunting process that requires a lot of time and effort.

Some Kubernetes distributions provide interactive installer scripts to help you automate most of the setup process. If you choose a Kubernetes distribution such as Rancher, you can expect to easily configure and install it in a day or two.

The third option is to use a cloud provider solution such as Google Kubernetes Engine to run Kubernetes as a managed service on the cloud. In this case, you can choose to install and set up. It is worth noting, however, that your choices may be limited when determining how to configure the Kubernetes environment.

The most important thing you must realize is that do not underestimate the difficulty of configuring Kubernetes. Before you really put your heart and soul into Kubernetes, make sure it's worth the effort. On the other hand, if you are not sure how difficult it is for enterprises to install and deploy Kubernetes on a production cluster, you can try to test it with lightweight Kubernetes distributions such as K3s and estimate how much effort will be required to configure and set up Kubernetes later.

4. Kubernetes and declarative configuration management

Kubernetes uses a so-called declarative configuration management approach, which means that you need to write your own configuration files to set how the Kubernetes application should run, and Kubernetes will automatically point out how to make the application conform to the specification.

Declarative configuration management is the opposite of imperative configuration management, in which you can configure each component of your application and make it work the way you want it to.

Declarative configuration is one of the reasons why Kubernetes is so powerful and scalable in many user instances. You can set the configuration once and apply it multiple times as needed.

But what should you do if your configuration requirements are constantly changing, or between workloads or different parts of the environment? In this case, declarative configuration management will be an obstacle, and you will find yourself constantly adjusting profiles that were previously thought to be "once and for all."

Therefore, before you choose to adopt Kubernetes, you need to consider the configuration requirements of your application. Kubernetes is a good option only if the configuration you need is relatively generic and static.

5. Kubernetes and cloudy

One of the main features of some Kubernetes distributions such as Rancher is that a single Kubernetes deployment can orchestrate multiple clusters, regardless of whether the clusters are located on different public or private clouds. This capability makes Kubernetes an excellent tool to help control the complexity of multi-cloud architectures.

Kubernetes on multiple clouds makes sense when containerized applications are deployed across multiple clouds and the setup and configuration of Kubernetes is reasonable.

Among these factors, you should be aware that when considering whether and when to adopt Kubernetes, you should consider your current multi-cloud strategy and multi-cloud expansion plan.

Conclusion

Kubernetes is a great tool, and when set up correctly, it can generate great value. However, it does not reach the state of a killer application because it cannot deliver value in all user instances. Before you get caught up in a huge hype and make sure you can't leave Kubernetes, soberly assess your needs to see if Kubernetes can really help you run your application more effectively and reliably.

These are the five things you must know before adopting K8S. The editor believes that there are some knowledge points that we may see or use in our daily work. I hope you can learn more from this article. For more details, please follow the industry information channel.

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