Kubernetes is the answer but, what was the question?
April 22, 2022

Kubernetes is the answer but, what was the question?

Asad Khan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Kubernetes

I deploy & manage telco workloads on top of Kubernetes. These are called CNFs (Containerized network functions) which are legacy telco applications converted into K8s objects & connected via a networking & storage solution of your choice, managed by K8s. Just like every other industry, Telcos are no exception converting all their legacy applications sitting on proprietary hardware & boxes to COTS hardware & software architectures adapted toward cloud technologies. Kubernetes helps us to manage the CNFs efficiently & gives a better uptime as compared to VM-based architecture. I see the scope of flexibility & easy scaling in K8s as compared to any other technology.
  • Makes sure that the workload remains UP & running by maintaining the desired state.
  • Gives a lot of flexibility in choosing the networking, storage, monitoring, etc solutions of your choice.
  • The biggest advantage is to upgrade the application with a new version without any downtime.
  • Portability of the code is possible up to a great extent.
  • Flexibility gives birth to complexity & therefore designing an application on K8s is also complex.
  • Writing Yaml manifests manually & then validating them for errors is a pain that should be worked upon with a solution that can write YAMLs & Helm charts in the background with the user designing the application on a GUI-based sketch. Just like they do in OpenStack.
  • The overall approach of operations should be shifted from CLI to GUI-based for ease of use.
  • Due to a lot of objects & new concepts, the learning curve is really flat i.e. slow.
  • Adding GUI-based operations like finding the exact point causing latency OR showing the POD consuming the highest CPU/RAM would be of great help.
  • Upgrade without downtime
  • Quick scaling
  • Redundancy & uptime
  • Flexibility to choose the various CNI & CSI options.
  • Reduced downtime by more than 50%.
  • Increased upgrade frequency by 30%.
  • Avoided management escalations by 45%.
As I said earlier also -
- K8s manage the workloads better as compared to OpenStack in terms of reliability, observability & reachability.
- K8s is not limited to only a single networking or storage solution as compared to OpenStack.
- Networking (which is a key concept) is much simpler in K8s as compared to OpenStack.
- It is possible to upgrade your applications without downtime in K8s but in OpenStack, you either have to divert the traffic or face an outage because you have to delete the whole stack & then recreate it.

Do you think Kubernetes delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Kubernetes's feature set?

Yes

Did Kubernetes live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Kubernetes go as expected?

No

Would you buy Kubernetes again?

Yes

Red Hat OpenStack Platform, CentOS Linux, Nuage Networks Virtualized Services Platform (VSP)
K8s should be avoided - If your application works well without being converted into microservices-based architecture & fits correctly in a VM, needs less scaling, have a fixed traffic pattern then it is better to keep away from Kubernetes. Otherwise, the operational challenges & technical expertise will add a lot to the OPEX. Also, if you're the one who thinks that containers consume fewer resources as compared to VMs then this is not true. As soon as you convert your application to a microservice-based architecture, a lot of components will add up, shooting your resource consumption even higher than VMs so, please beware.

Kubernetes is a good choice - When the application needs quick scaling, is already in microservice-based architecture, has no fixed traffic pattern, most of the employees already have desired skills.