Kubernetes Trials & Tribulations Q&A: Cloud, Data Center, Edge

January 5, 2023August 21, 2023 Michael Hoard Leave a comment

Kubernetes cloud orchestration platforms offer all the flexibility, elasticity, and ease of use — on premises, in a private or public cloud, even at the edge. The flexibility of turning on services when you want them, turning them off when you don’t, is an enticing prospect for developers as well as application deployment teams, but it has not been without its challenges.

At our recent SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative webcast “Kubernetes Trials & Tribulations: Cloud, Data Center, Edge” our experts, Michael St-Jean and Pete Brey, debated both the challenges and advantages of Kubernetes. If you missed the session, it is available on-demand along with the presentation slides. The live audience raised several interesting questions. Here are answers to them from our presenters.

Q: Are all these trends coming together? Where will Kubernetes be in the next 1-3 years?

A: Adoption rates for workloads like databases, artificial intelligence & machine learning, and data analytics in a container environment are on the rise. These applications are stateful and diverse, so a multi-protocol persistent storage layer built with Kubernetes services is essential. Read More

Kubernetes is Everywhere Q&A

August 3, 2022August 21, 2023 Alex McDonald Leave a comment

Earlier this month, the SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative hosted a fascinating panel discussion “Kubernetes is Everywhere: What About Cloud Native Storage?” where storage experts from SNIA and Kubernetes experts from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) discussed storage implications for Kubernetes. It was a lively and enlightening discussion on key considerations for container storage. In this Q&A blog, our panelists Nick Connolly, Michael St-Jean, Pete Brey and I elaborate on some of the most intriguing questions during the session.

Q. What are the additional/different challenges for Kubernetes storage at the edge – in contrast to the data center?

A. Edge means different things depending on context. It could mean enterprise or provider edge locations, which are typically characterized by smaller, compact deployments of Kubernetes. It could mean Kubernetes deployed on a single node at a site with little or no IT support, or even disconnected from the internet, on ships, oil rigs, or even in space for example. It can also mean device edge, like MicroShift running on a small form factor computer or within an ARM or FPGA card for example.

One big challenge for Kubernetes at the edge in general is to provide a lightweight Read More

Business Resiliency in a Kubernetes World

May 12, 2020May 12, 2020 Jim Fister Leave a comment

At the 2018 KubeCon keynote, Monzo Bank explained the potential risk of running a single massive Kubernetes cluster. A minor conflict between etcd and Java led to an outage during one of their busiest business days, prompting questions, like “If a cluster goes down can our business keep functioning?” Understanding the business continuity implications of multiple Kubernetes clusters is an important topic and key area of debate.

It’s an opportunity for the SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative (CSTI) to host “A Multi-tenant Multi-cluster Kubernetes “Datapocalypse” is Coming” – a live webcast on June 23, 2020 where Kubernetes expert, Paul Burt, will dive into:

Answering Your Kubernetes Storage Questions

September 25, 2019March 29, 2020 Paul Burt Leave a comment

Our recent SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative (CSTI) Kubernetes in the Cloud series generated a lot of interest, but also more than a few questions. The interest is a great indicator of Kubernetes rising profile in the world of computing.

Following the third episode in the series, we’ve chosen a few questions that might help to better explain (or bring additional context to) our presentation. This post is our answer to your very important questions.

If you’re new to this webcast series about running Kubernetes in the cloud, you can catch the three parts here:

The rest of this article includes your top questions from, and our answers to, Part 3:

Q. What databases are best suited to run on Kubernetes?

Kubernetes Links & Resources to Keep You in the Know

August 20, 2019March 29, 2020 Mike Jochimsen Leave a comment

Our recent SNIA CSTI webcast, “Kubernetes in the Cloud (Part 3): (Almost) Everything You Need to Know about Stateful Workloads” offered a wealth of insight on how to address the challenges of running stateful workloads in Kubernetes. This webcast was the third installment of our Kubernetes in the Cloud webcast series and it is now available on-demand as are “Kubernetes in the Cloud (Part 1)” and “Kubernetes in the Cloud (Part 2).”

Our expert presenters, Paul Burt and Ingo Fuchs, have provided additional resources to help keep you in the know on Kubernetes. Here they all are:

Kubernetes in the Cloud Q&A

August 6, 2019March 29, 2020 Michelle Tidwell Leave a comment

Kubernetes is a hot topic these days, generating lots of interest and questions. The goal of our SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative Kubernetes in the Cloud webcast series is to cut through the hype and provide a vendor neutral look at what Kubernetes is and how it is being used. Our most recent webcast, Kubernetes in the Cloud (Part 2), generated some interesting questions. Here are answers from our expert presenters.

Q. If I’m running my Kubernetes infrastructure at a cloud service provider, do I need CSI support by the cloud provider? If this is not available, I will need a virtual storage array that provides CSI leveraging the underlying cloud storage. Do you know whether there are solutions on the market that I can deploy as a virtual machine at my cloud provider?

A. Current solutions using the CSI interface for public cloud storage are not available at this point. It will be up to the cloud provider to decide whether to support those interfaces to their storage layers.

Q. Does each pod run on one CPU core? I am trying to understand how to size the server configuration?

A. Containers use Linux cgroups to limit the amount of CPU and memory a container can consume and this is exposed in Kubernetes as limits that you can set.

Stateful Workloads on Kubernetes: (Almost) Everything You Need to Know

July 26, 2019March 29, 2020 Mike Jochimsen Leave a comment

Kubernetes is great for running stateless workloads, like web servers. It’ll run health checks, restart containers when they crash, and do all sorts of other wonderful things. So, what about stateful workloads? Large implementers like Uber say to avoid it if you can [1], and gurus like Kelsey Hightower echo that sentiment [2].

It’s the topic we’ll address on August 20^th at our live SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative webcast “Kubernetes in the Cloud (Part 3): Stateful Workloads.” In this session, we’ll explore when it’s appropriate to run a stateful workload in cluster, or out. We’ll discuss the best options for running a workload like a database on the cloud, or in the cluster, and what’s needed to set that up.

We’ll cover:

Understanding Kubernetes in the Cloud

March 25, 2019March 29, 2020 Mike Jochimsen Leave a comment

Ever wonder why and where you would want to use Kubernetes? You’re not alone, that’s why the SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative is hosting a live webcast on May 2, 2019 “Kubernetes in the Cloud.”

Kubernetes (k8s) is an open-source system for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Kubernetes promises simplified management of cloud workloads at scale, whether on-premises, hybrid, or in a public cloud infrastructure, allowing effortless movement of workloads from cloud to cloud. By some reckonings, it is being deployed at a rate several times faster than virtualization.

Wondering What’s New in Container Storage?

January 17, 2019January 24, 2019 Alex McDonald 2 Comments

The landscape of containers is moving fast and constantly changing, with new standards emerging every few months. If you wondering what’s new in container storage, you are not alone. That’s why the SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative is hosting a live webcast on February 26, 2019, “What’s New in Container Storage.”

In this webcast, Keith Hudgins of Docker joins us as a follow up to his earlier container webcast “Intro to Containers, Container Storage and Docker.” It’s our most popular webcast to date with thousands of views. If you missed it, it’s available on demand and will provide you with some great background information before our February 26^h webcast.

I encourage you to register today for the February 26^th session where you’ll learn:

What’s new, what to pay attention to, and how to make sense of the ever-shifting container landscape.
Container storage types and Container Frameworks
An overview of the various storage APIs for the container landscape
How to identify the most important projects to follow in the container world
The Container Storage Interface spec and Kubernetes 1.13
How to get involved in the container community

It will be live, so bring your questions!