Kubernetes is a powerful container orchestration technology that continues to grow in popularity with enterprise users. A recent survey conducted in 2019 by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation – the organization that governs Kubernetes development – reports that 78% of the respondents were using Kubernetes in production, compared with only 58% in 2018. This is real attention-getting growth. Obviously, with these sorts of numbers, more companies are going to jump on the bandwagon.
Yet using Kubernetes is not all peaches and cream. It’s a very complex technology with a lot of moving parts. At the “hello-world” level, adopting Kubernetes might seem like a straightforward undertaking, but in reality, adoption is a winding path with many hazards along the way.
Key takeaways
- Kubernetes is a complex technology that is made up of a variety of subsystems
- Using an ADC to do “system housekeeping” chores such as load balancing, service discovery and access security can alleviate most of the burden of adopting Kubernetes
- Kubernetes takes an agnostic approach to subsystem implementation
- Specific subsystem implementations can vary in terms of reliability, creating risk in the Kubernetes adoption process.