Overcoming Infrastructure Obstacles When Deploying Production-Ready Kubernetes

Chapter 3. Tackling the Infrastructure

Given the enormous momentum and energy in the Kubernetes community, it’s no surprise that end users have tinkered with deploying it on every platform from ARM, to embedded, to high-performance supercomputers. So, there are no shortage of options available for teams to evaluate when considering the important and fundamental question—once you’ve made a decision to run Kubernetes, where and how do you run the dang thing? Additionally, given that many teams are not Kubernetes experts, how are they supposed to evaluate the various options available? These questions will have a huge impact on your organization’s success or failure in adopting Kubernetes.

Where and How to Run Kubernetes

Ultimately, most teams need to carefully and honestly evaluate their business needs, and weigh them against the various costs and benefits of possible solutions such as:

• Running your own Kubernetes cluster(s)

• Running on a cloud provider’s Kubernetes service

• Running on premises using a trusted vendor’s Kubernetes offering

Every team needs to decide for themselves what the right solution is, but in general, it’s safest to assume that deep knowledge in Kubernetes is not and should not become a core competency of your business. It’s important to weigh the natural instincts engineers have to adopt new technology, learn more, and understand how their component systems work with a balance that encourages us to make smarter decisions about how much we can accomplish ...