Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs. HashiCorp Nomad

AKS works very well for running containerized applications that require high availability and scalability. This includes systems like our HRIS platform and customer-facing web applications. AKS is a good choice when applications are broken into multiple services that need independent scaling and deployment. It provides the flexibility needed to manage these architectures effectively. But for single, low-traffic applications or simple internal tools, AKS can be overkill. For scenarios like that Azure App Service would be better.

Incentivized

Nomad is well suited for organizations who wish to tackle the problem of cloud computing with as little opinion as possible. Where competing tools like Kubernetes limit the concept of "batteries included," Nomad relies on engineers understanding the missing components and filling them in as necessary. The benefit of Nomad is the ability to build a system out of small pieces with the cost of having more complexity at a system level compared to alternatives.

Incentivized

• AKS makes it easier to replicate data to multiple regions
• Azure portal make it easier to manage the resources of the organization

Incentivized

• Nomad is incredibly simple by nature, following the Linux philosophy of doing one thing great. That one thing for Nomad is job scheduling.
• Nomad is a modern tool, written in Go with a large community and maintained by HashiCorp.
• Implementation of Nomad is very simple since it is a single binary.

Incentivized

• Steep learning curve
• Expected charges are unclear until you see real production usage
• Operations teams need to learn an entirely new skill set

Incentivized

• Nomad only handles one part of a full platform. Expertise and vision are required in implementing an entire system that is functional enough for an organization to rely on. This includes other tools to handle things like secrets, service discovery, network routing, etc.
• Nomad is delayed in some modern functionality, like features for service-mesh and open tracing. These features are on the tool's roadmap, but there's currently no native support. These paradigms can be established still, but require more expertise outside of Nomad itself.
• Nomad is not the leading tool for this space, and as such risks being left behind by tools with much greater support, such as Kubernetes.

Incentivized

It is not as straight forward and user friendly as in AWS or GCP. It needs a lot of monitoring and checking if any failed services have been deallocated or not. It feels like the managed service only actually manages the UI and not much beyond it. I works so you can't complain but it can be tonnes better.

Incentivized

Microsoft support was really good, whenever we raise any ticket they come back to us within a couple of hours.

Incentivized

Due to cost efficiency. And using AZURE cloud for other services as well. Azure Kubernetes Service is more suitable to configure CI/CD pipelines. With a facility of automated or One click deployment and integration of the application. As compared with other Kubernetes Services like Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service and Google Kubernetes Service, Azure Kubernetes is most cost-efficient with the same facilities and with an advantage to configure easily, manage easily, as it is one click manageable with Microsoft applications. It provides high Microsoft security to containers and secures applications from any kind of harm.

Incentivized

Nomad's primary competitor is Kubernetes, specifically its scheduling component. Kubernetes is a much more complete system that will handle more things than job scheduling, including service discovery, secrets management, and service routing. There also exists a much larger community support for Kubernetes vs Nomad. One might say Kubernetes is the safer choice between the two. Kubernetes is the complete "operating system" for cloud computing, but with it includes complexities that are "Kubernetes" specific. The decision really comes down to a mindset of monolith vs components. With Kubernetes, I would argue you choose the entire system as a whole. With Nomad, you design your system piece by piece. There is no wrong answer.

Incentivized

• The ability to scale has reduced the need for headcount in IT
• The authentication process has kept us compliant with regulatory bodies
• The ability to replicate environments is great.

Incentivized

• Nomad has allowed our organization to deploy quicker and more frequently with a lower failure rate.
• Nomad has brought in consistency from an operations perspective.
• Nomad's performance allows us to scale infinitely while providing functionality that reduces mean time to repair (canary deploys, versioning, rollbacks, etc).

Incentivized