Percona Kubernetes Operators vs. Podman.io

Production ready, robust DB solution built for Kubernetes envs, we was able, for the first time, to ship production db workloads inside k8s. Be sure to check differences with "traditional" MySQL and other clustering solutions. Also be sure to match it with proper k8s storage solutions.

While it always depends on your use case, I believe security concerns of need for root user is a concern, so it is worth considering daemonless container service over Docker, which works just as good and has support for docker compose. Another good reason is the licensing for enterprise usage, which podman has no restrictions for. It’s also a great choice for OpenShift integration, which is seamless and works well with Rancher as well.

Incentivized

• Easy and fast deployment.
• A reliable, fully automated, high-available db lifecycle management solution.
• Exaustive documentation.
• Production ready.

• It’s daemonless, so somewhat more secure.
• It works exceptionally well and is compatible with Docker compose
• Podman Desktop actually makes individual usage also pretty easy.
• It can be used as Docker alternative with almost no additional steps

Incentivized

• Some differences compared to "traditional" MySQL solution.
• Had some hard times trying to use it combined with pre-existing techs like WordPress, Magento, etc.
• The specific k8s environment features can have an impact on it, like the storage solutions offered by the cloud vendor.

• Podman desktop is getting more stable with each version, but does need more UX friendliness as well.
• Official support for development tools and IDEs is missing for most tools
• It works well with Kubernetes, but I wouldn’t mind additional improvements

Incentivized

Easy and fast deployment. A reliable, fully automated, high-available db lifecycle management solution. It requires a bit of learning time for people new to operators ecosystem.

Well documented, there was no need to contact support.

For a long time we struggled finding a viable solution to migrate our existing db workloads inside Kubernetes. Before "operators era" proper db workloads required manual management, of course that easily raised administrative overhead. Then the future started to be brighter with the introduction of operators and the "official" Oracle's MySQL Operator, then Presslab's one, finally Percona's operator. Compared to other operators, the last one allowed us to ship production db workloads inside k8s.

Podman is Daemonless, lightweight and doesn’t charge us for commercial usage, so it’s a relief for startups. Minikube and Rancher are a bit more complex for our use cases; so we keep things simple, fast and secure with Podman that can easily be managed with Podman Desktop and other works with our docker-compose based projects without issues.

Incentivized

• It allowed us to use k8s on our entire infrastructure.
• Decreased administrative overhead around our db services.
• As it is an open source technology, it cut down our db pricings.

• We definitely feel more secure.
• We do not suffer from memory or cpu overuses as it uses fedora coreOS which is lightweight
• We do not have to worry about license payments for our basic usages.
• It’s open source so quick fixes imminent with maximum transparency.

Incentivized