For those that are not familiar with Kubernetes, it’s an open source container orchestration platform. Google first published Kubernetes in 2014 for the purpose of running containers. 

Thanks to contributions from the open source community, the use of Kubernetes has flourished. A 2019 survey showed how Kubernetes dominated the orchestration sector, and forecasters expect the container application market to be worth more than $2.7 billion by 2020.

Such is the popularity of Kubernetes which has prompted some commentators to go as far to say that every business should introduce it. So, what is the appeal of Kubernetes and why has it proved so popular among businesses?

The advantages of Kubernetes are manifold, including improved productivity, scaling, automation and configuration. And there are other benefits too. In this article, we’ll focus on three ways that Kubernetes reduces cloud complexity.

Multi-cloud Monitoring Challenges

Although many businesses have moved to the cloud because of its improved visibility, monitoring multiple clouds can remain challenging. The tools offered by various vendors do not always prove reliable and tailoring specific tools to multiple clouds makes managing the cloud infrastructure more complex than it needs to be.

However, providers are helping to solve these problems. For instance, major vendors such as IBM provide a dashboard for overseeing Kubernetes clusters. But that doesn’t mean monitoring the security of these multi-cloud Kubernetes configurations is not without its challenges. Your organization will have to put additional measures to enhance security. This means using security tools to measure and analyze data from multiple clouds and having a team on hand who can respond quickly to threats.

Kubernetes Helps Future Proof Your Business

When making a new investment in technology, one of the questions at the forefront of the mind is how workable it will be in the long term. Although there are no guarantees, businesses have reason to be confident about Kubernetes and its long-term viability in their organization. There are several reasons for this, including:

• Every major public and private cloud vendor supports Kubernetes. Its alternatives are lagging behind and do not have the support of major providers.

• Kubernetes is showing strong development, with new products being released regularly.

• Kubernetes has a supportive open source community behind it, and developers and business investors that continue to add value. Google, IBM (Red Hat), VMware and Fujitsu are just some of its supporters.

• Kubernetes can future proof software delivery.

• Kubernetes is resilient as it provides availability and scalability.
  
  

Kubernetes for Security

While it has multiple advantages, Kubernetes can have some security issues such as container compromise and infrastructure attacks. However, there are several security features built into Kubernetes to ease these concerns.

Kubernetes comes with built-in security features to protect your stacks. Vendors provide a comprehensive selection of protections, including automated encryption, private registries, isolation policies and scanning. Organizations can also put pod policies, transport layer security, API authorization and API authentication as well as restricted access to further secure clusters.

In addition, there are many security solutions available, such as Kube-Bench and Kops (short for Kubernetes Operations) that your company can add for additional security or to address specific security needs.

Conclusion

The business use of Kubernetes is growing, and its benefits are clear. Organizations stand to benefit from easier multi cloud management and built-in security benefits while being able to future proof their businesses. This is beside the other benefits of Kubernetes, which include improved automation, productivity and scaling.

Kubernetes also enables developers to overcome some of the challenges of managing a multi-cloud environment.

To find out more about how the Stone Door Group can help your business, drop us a line at letsdothis@stonedoorgroup.com or visit stonedoorgroup.com for more information.

About the Author

Amber Ernst is a Docker Certified Associate and Docker Accredited Instructor for Stone Door Group, a Professional Docker Value Added Reseller. Amber is a Docker and Kubernetes expert who currently teaches all courses in Docker’s official training catalogue and is based in San Antonio, TX.