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Huh, this is kind of an odd post to me. I've used Docker for several years for many projects, plus other container technologies (LXC, systemd-nspawn). But I've

Huh, this is kind of an odd post to me. I've used Docker for several years for many projects, plus other container technologies (LXC, systemd-nspawn). But I've never touched Kubernetes in my life. Could barely tell you anything about it. It's just never been necessary. Is Kubernetes really that popular out there in the wider software world? Or is this author just in a bubble?

duskwuff 5y ago
Have you ever used docker-compose to define a system architecture consisting of multiple containers? If so: Kubernetes is kind of like a fancier version of that which can scale to a large cluster, along with tools for handling common tasks associated with these deployments like name resolution, HTTP/S ingress, automatic scaling, and periodic tasks. It scratches a lot of itches for large-scale production environments.
KronisLV 5y ago
> Is Kubernetes really that popular out there in the wider software world? I guess it could be a regional thing, but for the most part i'd be inclined to say yes. Most of the larger cloud vendors offer managed Kubernetes in one way or another (Azure, GCP, AWS, Scaleway etc.), which you cannot say about any other orchestrator out there. Most of the large enteprises that i've worked with also are moving towards introducing Kubernetes internally, sometimes with pretty large clusters for multiple projects at once! Similarly, most of the tooling out there is focused on Kubernetes nowadays (networking, storage, deployment solutions), which isn't the case for other orchestrators. Of course, many out there don't even need an orchestrator - Docker or even Docker Compose (or the podman equivalents, or other solutions like that) are oftentimes enough for smaller scale projects, it can be a while before you would enjoy the benefits from the likes of Docker Swarm, Hashicorp Nomad or even one of the many Kubernetes distros out there. Once you need to scale past one (or a few servers) and need to orchestrate deployments across all of them, it might just be worth to look into them, though.
- intrepidsoldier 5y ago
  Kubernetes is indeed popular. Inexplicably so, I must admit.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    > Inexplicably so, I must admit. I guess that's because Google largely won the "container wars", being the first to market with a reasonably complete feature set, brand reputation and resources for continued development, offerings by most cloud vendors and also a large dose of hype in the form of developer talks, demos, press releases/newsletters, tutorials, learning resources and i guess even certifications. Of course, that wasn't all just Google - once the hype around it started, numerous parties joined in, wanting recognition, relevant skills, or even to market their products that are built around supporting the complexity of Kubernetes. Compare that to something like Apache Mesos, which, while initially promising, largely fell by the wayside and never really caught on: https://mesos.apache.org/ https://mesos.apache.org/
    - emteycz 5y ago
      Mesos used to be popular right before Docker became popular. To this day I am not sure how I'd deploy a dockerized app to Mesos... Which is IMHO a big part of the problem.
  - tomnipotent 5y ago
    > Inexplicably so, I must admit. Larger surface area that can be controlled programmatically without needing to involve the people managing the hardware or network. This makes certain engineering choices (like microservices) more tenable.
Toine 5y ago
You're not alone. I lost it. Microservices, k8s, Terraform, etc. I don't understand my industry anymore. 99% of the time, they're completely useless and add a ton of complexity to the project. Just sheep, junior mentality. Your product isn't going to succeed because you use the same stack as Amazon or Netflix. If anything, it reduces your chances of success.
- intrepidsoldier 5y ago
  Never underestimate the value of good old servers: https://ramansharma.substack.com/p/the-case-for-cloud-servers-for-developers-4d905839a17 https://ramansharma.substack.com/p/the-case-for-cloud-server...
- CraigJPerry 5y ago
  I think it depends on the scale of your operation. If you’re big enough to have a Unix team and SRE’s then today I’d wager kube can save you time and money vs. manually managing cpu, memory & disk allocations, software deployments/rollbacks and disaster recovery steps. If you’re smaller than that, it really depends on the skillset of the team as to whether kube is a good idea or not.
  - Toine 5y ago
    Exactly. If you're big enough, these tools are fine. The thing is 99% of companies are small. Like, really small. Today, 50k users is really small.
tie_ 5y ago
Same here. The first time I hear that containers are hard-linked with Kubernetes in anyone's mind. Docker standalone was used for a long time before Kuberbetes was a thing. AWS, Azure and Google have had options to run containers long before they had managed K8s. There have always been excellent ways to use containers without involving Kubernetes.
- intrepidsoldier 5y ago
  Would that be true for someone learning containers today?
- tomnipotent 5y ago
  > Docker standalone was used for a long time before Kuberbetes was a thing Amazon ECS launched April 2015 and EKS June 2018. I remember the docker deployment story being a mess. You still needed to manage a fleet of containers the same way you did VM instances.
voidfunc 5y ago
> Is Kubernetes really that popular out there in the wider software world? I work on the Kubernetes offering for one of the major cloud providers... yes, yes it is.

duskwuff 5y ago

Have you ever used docker-compose to define a system architecture consisting of multiple containers? If so: Kubernetes is kind of like a fancier version of that which can scale to a large cluster, along with tools for handling common tasks associated with these deployments like name resolution, HTTP/S ingress, automatic scaling, and periodic tasks. It scratches a lot of itches for large-scale production environments.

KronisLV 5y ago

> Is Kubernetes really that popular out there in the wider software world? I guess it could be a regional thing, but for the most part i'd be inclined to say yes. Most of the larger cloud vendors offer managed Kubernetes in one way or another (Azure, GCP, AWS, Scaleway etc.), which you cannot say about any other orchestrator out there. Most of the large enteprises that i've worked with also are moving towards introducing Kubernetes internally, sometimes with pretty large clusters for multiple projects at once! Similarly, most of the tooling out there is focused on Kubernetes nowadays (networking, storage, deployment solutions), which isn't the case for other orchestrators. Of course, many out there don't even need an orchestrator - Docker or even Docker Compose (or the podman equivalents, or other solutions like that) are oftentimes enough for smaller scale projects, it can be a while before you would enjoy the benefits from the likes of Docker Swarm, Hashicorp Nomad or even one of the many Kubernetes distros out there. Once you need to scale past one (or a few servers) and need to orchestrate deployments across all of them, it might just be worth to look into them, though.

intrepidsoldier 5y ago
Kubernetes is indeed popular. Inexplicably so, I must admit.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  > Inexplicably so, I must admit. I guess that's because Google largely won the "container wars", being the first to market with a reasonably complete feature set, brand reputation and resources for continued development, offerings by most cloud vendors and also a large dose of hype in the form of developer talks, demos, press releases/newsletters, tutorials, learning resources and i guess even certifications. Of course, that wasn't all just Google - once the hype around it started, numerous parties joined in, wanting recognition, relevant skills, or even to market their products that are built around supporting the complexity of Kubernetes. Compare that to something like Apache Mesos, which, while initially promising, largely fell by the wayside and never really caught on: https://mesos.apache.org/ https://mesos.apache.org/
  - emteycz 5y ago
    Mesos used to be popular right before Docker became popular. To this day I am not sure how I'd deploy a dockerized app to Mesos... Which is IMHO a big part of the problem.
- tomnipotent 5y ago
  > Inexplicably so, I must admit. Larger surface area that can be controlled programmatically without needing to involve the people managing the hardware or network. This makes certain engineering choices (like microservices) more tenable.

Toine 5y ago

You're not alone. I lost it. Microservices, k8s, Terraform, etc. I don't understand my industry anymore. 99% of the time, they're completely useless and add a ton of complexity to the project. Just sheep, junior mentality. Your product isn't going to succeed because you use the same stack as Amazon or Netflix. If anything, it reduces your chances of success.

intrepidsoldier 5y ago
Never underestimate the value of good old servers: https://ramansharma.substack.com/p/the-case-for-cloud-servers-for-developers-4d905839a17 https://ramansharma.substack.com/p/the-case-for-cloud-server...
CraigJPerry 5y ago
I think it depends on the scale of your operation. If you’re big enough to have a Unix team and SRE’s then today I’d wager kube can save you time and money vs. manually managing cpu, memory & disk allocations, software deployments/rollbacks and disaster recovery steps. If you’re smaller than that, it really depends on the skillset of the team as to whether kube is a good idea or not.
- Toine 5y ago
  Exactly. If you're big enough, these tools are fine. The thing is 99% of companies are small. Like, really small. Today, 50k users is really small.

tie_ 5y ago

Same here. The first time I hear that containers are hard-linked with Kubernetes in anyone's mind. Docker standalone was used for a long time before Kuberbetes was a thing. AWS, Azure and Google have had options to run containers long before they had managed K8s. There have always been excellent ways to use containers without involving Kubernetes.

intrepidsoldier 5y ago
Would that be true for someone learning containers today?
tomnipotent 5y ago
> Docker standalone was used for a long time before Kuberbetes was a thing Amazon ECS launched April 2015 and EKS June 2018. I remember the docker deployment story being a mess. You still needed to manage a fleet of containers the same way you did VM instances.

voidfunc 5y ago

> Is Kubernetes really that popular out there in the wider software world? I work on the Kubernetes offering for one of the major cloud providers... yes, yes it is.