Kubernetes

kubernetes.io
DevOps
Weekend Project

Production-Grade Container Orchestration

How to Replace Kubernetes

Overview

Kubernetes (K8s) is an open source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery. Kubernetes builds upon 15 years of experience running production workloads at Google combined with best-of-breed ideas and practices from the community.

Features

13 features across 11 categories

Deployment(1)

Automated Rollouts and Rollbacks

Progressively rolls out changes to your application or its configuration while monitoring application health to ensure it doesn't kill all instances at the same time. Automatically rolls back changes if something goes wrong.

Also in: Kubernetes Dashboard, Hugging Face, Bitwarden

Extensibility(1)

Designed for Extensibility

Add features to your Kubernetes cluster without changing upstream source code.

Also in: Labelbox, Obsidian, WordPress.com

Infrastructure(1)

Multi-Infrastructure Support

Open source giving you the freedom to take advantage of on-premises, hybrid, or public cloud infrastructure, letting you effortlessly move workloads to where it matters to you.

Networking(2)

IPv4/IPv6 Dual-Stack

Allocation of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses to Pods and Services.

Service Discovery and Load Balancing

Kubernetes gives Pods their own IP addresses and a single DNS name for a set of Pods, and can load-balance across them without requiring application modification.

Reliability(1)

Self-Healing

Restarts containers that crash, replaces entire Pods where needed, reattaches storage in response to wider failures, and can integrate with node autoscalers to self-heal at the node level.

Resource Management(1)

Automatic Bin Packing

Automatically places containers based on their resource requirements and other constraints while not sacrificing availability. Mix critical and best-effort workloads to drive up utilization and save resources.

Also in: Kubernetes Dashboard, Asana, Smartsheet

Scalability(1)

Planet Scale

Designed on the same principles that allow Google to run billions of containers a week, Kubernetes can scale without increasing your operations team.

Scaling(2)

Horizontal Scaling

Scale your application up and down with a simple command, with a UI, or automatically based on CPU usage.

Vertical Scaling

Automatically adjust resource requests and limits based on actual usage patterns.

Security(1)

Secret and Configuration Management

Deploy and update Secrets and application configuration without rebuilding your image and without exposing Secrets in your stack configuration.

Storage(1)

Storage Orchestration

Automatically mount the storage system of your choice, whether from local storage, a public cloud provider, or a network storage system such as iSCSI or NFS.

Workload Management(1)

Batch Execution

In addition to services, Kubernetes can manage batch and CI workloads, replacing containers that fail if desired.

Cost Calculator

Pricing data not available for Kubernetes. Check their website for current pricing.

Build vs Buy

Should you build a Kubernetes alternative or buy the subscription? Estimate based on 13 features.

Buy Kubernetes

Better Value
Monthly costContact Sales
3-year totalVaries
Time to deployDays

Build Your Own

Development cost$12,000
Maintenance$180/mo
3-year total$18,480
Dev time~1 months

Buying Kubernetes saves ~$18,480 over 3 years vs building.

Estimates based on 13 features and a BuildScore of 5/5. Actual costs vary.