Kubernetes Wins at Orchestration Engines, but Still Needs Backup

Our guest on the podcast this week is Shannon Williams, Co-Founder and VP, Sales at Rancher Labs.

We discuss how Kubernetes has won the war as a leader in orchestration. However, it is still not easy to use or maintain. We explore what organizations need to consider to build operational efficiencies around the technology. Kubernetes, Docker, and containers are very different from something like VMware and Amazon in terms of adoption. When new technology comes into an organization, they usually would quickly become an IT-led project. With containers, they are more like Puppet, Chef, and Ansible. They pop up in clusters around the organization, started directly by DevOps teams, developers, and users.  A lot of times they already exist scattered around an organization and need a framework or logic to manage it all. That is what Rancher does, they act as a services platform to help manage many clusters.

Key Considerations for Kubernetes

We talk about the key considerations organizations need to think about when trying to deploy Kubernetes across multiple clusters across multi-cloud. Some key points are:

Understanding expectations of scale Where will you be running it How to make it highly available Understanding your organization’s tolerance for failure

What many don’t realize is that often organizations are running Kubernetes in conjunction with legacy technologies. If you keep up with cloud news, it can sometimes seem like everyone is using the latest technology. In reality, many organizations still use legacy technology like VMs and only make small incremental changes. The two biggest place Rancher runs containers is on VMware and on Amazon. In summary, Kubernetes may prolong the life of legacy technologies like VMware.