3 ms·

Kubernetes is horribly complex.

by roschdal 4y ago

osigurdson 4y ago
Can you be more specific?
- standyro 4y ago
  It's often very difficult for developers to test applications in development because of the complexity of setting up `minikube` or `k3s`, so if your small to medium sized company doesn't have a dedicated devops or QA team, it can be too much overhead. I've worked with talented engineers who struggle getting up to speed with networking in k8s because there are a litany of tools, best practices, and terms to learn (nodeport, loadbalancer, and various ingress controllers) and it's heavily dependent on which cloud provider you're using (i.e. GKS , AWS, or Azure) so that adds weeks to dev time. This is a major problem if the team isn't well versed with devops tools (which is often the case at smaller companies) and can lead to lots of issues pushing a lot of work to a devops resource (or team) which requires setting up a separate dev/staging cluster. I think the preferred alternative for companies that struggle with this overhead is to use a slightly more expensive managed service, especially if you're just developing a typical MVC/MV* app.
Adiqq 4y ago
Kubernetes is not really complex at what it tries to achieve, but there might be some scenarios, where you need more tailored tool for the job. Would I use k8s just for static websites or single API? No. Would I use k8s, for rarely updated solution, where low costs are #1 priority? No. Would I use k8s for complex microservice architecture with a long list of ever-growing implicit/explicit requirements and a lot of moving parts? Definitely, because now you just need to either use some built-in k8s feature and/or use CNCF eco-system to supply you with almost anything you need. Kubernetes gives standardization, it's good in enterprise, where high complexity and poor communication is normal. It covers a lot of typical requirements for applications and you can learn a lot about solution just by looking at k8s cluster. However it's a time sink, if you really want to learn more about k8s and CNCF eco-system.

Kubernetes is horribly complex.

osigurdson 4y ago

Can you be more specific?

standyro 4y ago
It's often very difficult for developers to test applications in development because of the complexity of setting up `minikube` or `k3s`, so if your small to medium sized company doesn't have a dedicated devops or QA team, it can be too much overhead. I've worked with talented engineers who struggle getting up to speed with networking in k8s because there are a litany of tools, best practices, and terms to learn (nodeport, loadbalancer, and various ingress controllers) and it's heavily dependent on which cloud provider you're using (i.e. GKS , AWS, or Azure) so that adds weeks to dev time. This is a major problem if the team isn't well versed with devops tools (which is often the case at smaller companies) and can lead to lots of issues pushing a lot of work to a devops resource (or team) which requires setting up a separate dev/staging cluster. I think the preferred alternative for companies that struggle with this overhead is to use a slightly more expensive managed service, especially if you're just developing a typical MVC/MV* app.

Adiqq 4y ago

Kubernetes is not really complex at what it tries to achieve, but there might be some scenarios, where you need more tailored tool for the job. Would I use k8s just for static websites or single API? No. Would I use k8s, for rarely updated solution, where low costs are #1 priority? No. Would I use k8s for complex microservice architecture with a long list of ever-growing implicit/explicit requirements and a lot of moving parts? Definitely, because now you just need to either use some built-in k8s feature and/or use CNCF eco-system to supply you with almost anything you need. Kubernetes gives standardization, it's good in enterprise, where high complexity and poor communication is normal. It covers a lot of typical requirements for applications and you can learn a lot about solution just by looking at k8s cluster. However it's a time sink, if you really want to learn more about k8s and CNCF eco-system.