Word on the Cloud: Keeping you up-to-date on cloud native. Short & sharp!

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Is Kubernetes ready for production

Most people I speak with realise Kubernetes is no longer this new thing we should be afraid of.

– It’s more than 8 years old
– Version 1.0 was released way back in July 2015
– It has millions of users worldwide
– Over 4k companies are contributing to it

However, I’m regularly asked Is Kubernetes ready for production. Well, here goes…

Gearing up for production

Any production-grade platform needs first-class support for the three pillars of cloud computing:

– Compute
– Network
– Storage

Compute is always the easiest and comes first. Kubernetes has handled compute since the beginning.

Networking comes second and requires support from the 3rd-party ecosystem. Kubernetes has had strong networking for several years.

Storage is the hardest, always comes last, and requires strong 3rd-party support.

Getting Kubernetes ready for production-grade storage

Basic support for storage and data started inside of Kubernetes with things like the container storage interface (CSI) and the persistent volume subsystem (persistent volume claims, storage classes, snapshot APIs etc.).

However, first-class support was always going to come from the outside via 3rd-parties building on these foundations.

As I head to KubeCon, I’m genuinely excited that Commvault’s announcements are bringing world-class data management solutions to Kubernetes.

    NOTE: The remainder of this article is sponsored by Commvault. However, I only put my name alongside people, technologies, and companies I believe in.

What I like about Kubernetes + Commvault

First up, Commvault has been protecting containerised workloads on Kubernetes for a while. However, the following enhancements will be game-changing for a lot of environments.

Full Cluster Protection. This is the easy button and is designed for scenarios where you’re unsure what needs protecting and what doesn’t. It guarantees to protect everything in a cluster, allowing you to sleep in the knowledge you haven’t missed anything. It even detects new objects before each backup run.

Namespace Level Protection. This is the intermediate button and is great if you know a bit more about your environments but still aren’t exactly sure what comprises individual applications. Just tell Commvault the Namespaces that need protecting and Commvault takes care of the rest.

Both of these options are over and above the existing Application Group Protection options. However, no matter which level you protect at, Commvault lets you perform granular restores. For example, you can restore entire clusters, individual Namespaces, individual applications, just application data, or just application configuration files. And all options allow for out-of-place recovery so you can selectively test and then copy back to the live environment.

Another feature I like is protecting the Cluster Store (etcd).

Every Kubernetes 101 session teaches that the cluster store is the only stateful component of Kubernetes and protecting it is vital. However, this has never been simple. Well… thanks to Commvault it couldn’t be easier! Just toggle a single switch and Commvault will backup your Cluster Store!

As well as the above, everything is wrapped in what you’d expect from Commvault:

– Support contracts
– Service level agreements
– Single pane of glass for all data management needs

Conclusion: Kubernetes + Commvault = production ready

Thanks to solutions from the likes of Commvault, Kubernetes is now a safe solution for many of the most demanding production workloads and production environments in the world.

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