Item: IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use IKS for container orchestration for Docker based micro services in product portfolio. The product is a micro-service that uses IKS in multiple data centers having up to 18 nodes. From communication perspective, we use internal (within IKS) as well as external communication (through Ingress/Egress). The deployment model is automated. We use multiple technologies for IKS based microservices for our workloades but most content is based on JVM or JVM based languages.

We have traffic that goes beyound XXm / Hr and it's exposed to external live customers.

Pros and Cons

IKS is simple and has almost all aspects configurable to match our workloads.
IKS resources and upgrades of those resources are managed seamlessly allowing the developers to focus on application rather than IKS management itself.
There are multiple monitoring solutions within IKS to monitor the health of the cluster in best possible way. Many other services within IBM Cloud also integrate with IKS to provide best possible solution as per the use case at hand.
Requesting the additional resources (SRE) or de-allocating is especially easy.
IKS support is extremely active in answering the queries or any help needed in general.

IBM Cloud has access to all resources my account uses. IBM Cloud / IKS has auto updates/upgrades for which reminders / alerts are sent to all account admins. I would prefer alerts being passed on to me for only the services I'm using in account. I think IBM Cloud already does it - but it would be great to fine tune it.
If possible keep upgrades/updates frequent - but small in size and impact.
Sometimes I have seen IKS dashboard appearing much slowly than other times.

Return on Investment

IKS has servied our use case well in general. For a product integrations allow (or disallow) the extent to which long term succes of a solution is ensured.
IKS has good monitoring/alerting that is extremely key to any on-demand service that we host to monitor health of the services within the cluster.
If one is moving from other Kubernetes service to IKS then there may be a slight learning curve - but one can be set in resonable time.
The training material on IKS dashboard linked context sensitive help is good but can be improved.

IBM Kubernetes Simplified Cluster Management

We have used IKS UI for general usage as well as CLI for automating our CI/CD tasks. We have used API option but not in production at the moment.

IKS GUI is simple and easy to use.

IBM Kubernetes Service Pre-built Services

We use may other IBM Cloud services such as IBM Cloud Container Registry Service, IBM Cloud Logging & Monitoring Service, IBM Cloud Objec Storage Serivice. All services are easy to use and can be provisioned on demand. Our most use cases require auto provisioning, security and scalability (Specially IBM COS/IKS).

We often provision / deprovision resources on demand to match the required scale.

Alternatives Considered

Our almost all use-cases are being addressed by IKS and integrations on IBM Cloud. So have not necessarily explored other vendors with similar depth.

IBM Cloud Portfolio

IBM Cloud Container Registry
IBM Cloud Object Storage

We use IBM Cloud CR and COS services extensively in our microservices. Our requirements are mostly around auto-scalability and security. All IBM Cloud CR images are scanned and then made available.

IBM COS service also has various subscription plans and hot/cold storage options. Both enable our business solution to integrate seamlessly. IBM COS scales to millions or requests (GET/PUT calls). It has SDK as well as REST integration options that are very suitable for us to automate and operate as well.

Key Insights

Do you think IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service's feature set?

Yes

Did IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

I think IKS would work for most use cases that we have. My experience with IKS is mostly with micro services based workloads that are scalable and small. IKS has good variety of integrations available OOB to help our use cases. The monitoring and alerting is good and we can get notifications / alerts on almost all aspects of IKS.

I think it works well for workloads having dynamic resource requirements as well (nodes for example). We can quickly provision / deprovision the resources for a cluster quickly.

IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service Review for Microservices Use Case

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service