A presentation at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2022 in in Valencia, Spain by Max Körbächer
From Cloud Naive to Cloud Native - Avoiding mistakes everyone does Max Körbächer, Liquid Reply
Say hi! Max Körbächer - Co-Founder of Liquid Reply My work is all about Kubernetes Consultancy & Advisory: ● ● ● ● What configuration/extensions I need? How I can make my teams using K8s? How do we get our software from local to global? What is the best approach to build a managed Kubernetes cluster like in internal developer platform? ● How do we do Security or Operations on Kubernetes? mkoerbaecher mkoerbi Photo
Today we are talking about something that is difficult to catch and even more harder to describe
Moving to the Clouds and becoming cloud native Taking your steps into the clouds was never so easy as of today, as person or corporation. You only need a credit card. But it is on you, if it will be a one way flight ticket through the clouds or a new era of cloud native development .
Old but gold
The Cloud Native Pyramid Infrastructure Business Requirement <-> Application Development Cloud Native is often but not always a good approach. The same with containers and Kubernetes. But if it fits your Devs must be ready. The more the infrastructure is automated (IaaS/CSP) the easier it is, the easier it is also to miss use it. Don’t make from a mouse an elephant. Internal Developer Platform Cloud Native Mindset/Methodology Cloud Native isn’t a tool, a process or an object you can buy. We are talking about a mindset and a kind of unformalized methodology. An automated, developer centric, operations supporting hyper converged infrastructure. Often a result of containerization and Kubernetes.
The Cloud Native Pyramid What the customer see Infrastructure The infrastructure is seen as the biggest problem - costly, complex, and huge amount of work goes into. Even or especially with cloud providers. Business Requirement <-> Application Development Internal Developer Platform Cloud Native Mindset/Methodology
The Cloud Native Pyramid What we see Business Requirement <-> Application Development Cloud Native Mindset/Methodology Your company success with the right mindset, your company fails if it refuses to change. And you can’t train or certify a mindset. It needs to be cultivated. Disciplines/roles/jobs will mix and mingle. Infrastructure Internal Developer Platform
Cloud Based vs Cloud Native Cloud Based Cloud Native Leaning towards stateful/sticky workload Focusing on agnostic runtimes (containers) and serverless Isolation focused - silos Community driven distributed collaboration & communication Semi automation - scripting heavy Heavily automated - event driven native integration Slow restarts - sensitive data handling Fast restarts - data processed securely but disruptions are expected Capacity overprovisioning Capacity minimization - no overhead
Observations You can be the Queen of Cloud Nativeness, Misconceptions without ever touching a CSP Kubernetes is a more dynamic hypervisor I just put my apps on, as they are Kubernetes is two things: 1. A platform to build cross-platform platforms 2. A system to manage, enrich and run your applications Kubernetes is treated as a one time implementation → build once, hand over to operations Companies need to start thinking in products and not projects We hand out some best practices & blue prints and are enabled to do a mass migration, so that we are getting cloud native naive You have to actively guide and consult your ICT - typically the group of people understanding cloud native are very small
Apps often aren’t made for Cloud Native By design most software is not build for Kubernetes. Only 27% of the respondents have ever used K8s, 59% used containers By missing experience & knowledge many of the green field implementations are not built for Kubernetes. Around 50% are not interested or never heard of K8s 23% doesn’t know what K8s is used for -CNCF Cloud Native Dev Report
How to stay on the Cloud Native side
Mindset & Strategy ● 01 You have to be a brain surgeon, not a sledge hammer ● ● Every cloud native shift depends on the mindset - that is something you can’t train Strategic mass migrations towards cloud maybe speed up the process, but comes on other costs - frustration, knowledge gaps & wrong usage of cloud resources Identify the group of people who are burning for this topics and give them anything they need
You need to start by 0 To become cloud native If you want to be a digital company, you can’t just migrate your engineering, banking, telco, chemistry, aerospace (…) capabilities to a cloud. You only can enhance it that way. Because, you are not a cloud born company, like Netflix, Spotify, Uber and co. The mindset makes the difference
Companies choose CSP by $$$ What is never evaluated till the end are the technical capabilities and if they match your demand. On a shorthand, the hard facts about $$$ are easy to evaluate Companies even switch cloud providers because of money, forgetting about that the costs on the people, the migration and the knowledge loss can be higher than the savings.
Mindset & Strategy 01 You have to be a brain surgeon, not a sledge hammer 02 Start by 0, but demand any resources you can get 03 Don’t choose your cloud provider because of money ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Every cloud native shift depends on the mindset - that is something you can’t train Strategic mass migrations towards cloud can speed up the process, but comes on other costs - frustration, knowledge gaps & wrong usage of cloud resources Identify the group of people who are burning for this topics and give them anything they need Projects that want to reshape or re-architecture build already on ruins. A cloud native journey can be successful if started without any technical debts or history You have to give and dedicate any resource and budget the team needs, because they need to develop themself freely So many “Strategic Decisions” for a Cloud Provider are taken because of good contracts - you will not save money if the CSP doesn’t suits your requirements and the devil lays in the details
“Every” dev tool is critical If your GIT is unavailable in cloud native there is no way to keep your infra & apps synced If your deployment tool fails, you can’t play out your fix & patches If your container registry is locked, you can’t deploy and not push any container
The platforms you build will be used forever Building IDPs often happen within a timely terminated projects. Treat your IDPs as live long product: After it, normally budget cuts happen. And the developers get shifted to another project. ● ● ● ● Continuously update the infrastructure Implement new integrations Implement new providers Improve current features
t n’ re , ad en t s i ;) l Pattern Do Foundation Fundamental principles in order to become good cloud-native citizens: ● Declarative ● Health Probes ● Lifecycles ● Automation ● Predictable Behaviour Communication mechanisms and interactions between the Pods and the managing platform: ● Batch & Periodic ● Daemon ● Stateful ● Service Discovery ● Self Awareness Structural Configuration Structuring and organizing containers in a Pod to satisfy different use cases: ● Init Container ● Sidecars ● Adapter ● Ambassador Customizing and adapting applications with external configurations for various environments: ● EnvVar Config ● Config Resource ● Immutable Config ● Config Template Advanced Complex topics which also doesn’t suit to the other categories: ● Controller ● Operator ● Elastic Scale ● Image Builder
Teach pattern Pattern are old but gold, and give a unique understanding of the “how” Because within Kubernetes, we observe a constant miss usage of such approaches. ● ● ● ● Config Pattern as database Daemon Pattern as distribution mechanism Sidecars & Ambassadors which calls in all different directions and between pods Operator which are built without operational logic
Development & Product Management 01 “Dev” tools are sometimes more critical than your production systems ● ● ● 02 Don’t build for once, build for continuous change 03 Understand microservice and Cloud Native pattern ● ● ● Treat anything used for build and deploy your apps as critical as your production systems - Git system, CICD, Artefact stores and co A poor local development environment will not make a great cloud native solution Platforms, like Kubernetes, are often introduced in a one shot project, and than put into maintenance mode However, this is your vehicle for the future, you need to continuously work on it, and adjust it to your chaninge needs and the changing capabilities the open source community gives you Dynamic changing platforms require that the applications they serve needs to be able to take dynamics with comfort Stateless, event-driven, fault tolerant, decoupled
Kubernetes ● 01 Security, RBAC and Network Policies from Day One ● ● Introducing basic security actions like forbidding root or mounting host path, should be enforced by day one - also on Dev RBAC for some reason gets often no attention - change that! Just to start by a default deny all Network Policy will leverage your platform above most others in terms of security
Kubernetes ● 02 Do not let anyone skip the basics ● ● Kubernetes does a lot for you, but you have to accept and support it Utilize health checks & probes to maximize your service availability Understand the resource demand of your app and ensure your apps can scale horizontally
Multi or Single Cluster There is no right or wrong Whether you do one or many clusters, important is you are good with: ● ● ● ● automation of provisioning less scripts more declarative ease of use build on usefulness not on fanciness
Kubernetes ● Introducing basic security actions like forbidding root or mounting host path, should be enforced by day on - also on Dev RBAC for some reason gets often no attention - change that! Just to start by a default deny all Network Policy will leverage your platform above most others in terms of security Security, RBAC and Network Policies from Day One ● ● 02 Do not let anyone skip the basics ● ● ● Kubernetes does a lot for you, but you have to accept and support it Utilize health checks & probes to maximize your service availability Understand the resource demand of your app and ensure your apps can scale ● 03 Single Cluster, Multi Cluster, Multi-Tenancy Self or managed service? The most difficult question to answer, whatever you do → Don’t do only one cluster for all, but also do not make one per app cluster A central team providing a self-service provisioning mechanism with the ability to update clusters and natively integrate into the development process is the sweet spot you are looking for 01 ●
Most important The biggest mistake we always see Avoid: ● Building complex chained CICD processes ● Self coded cloud development kits ● A self management portal per cloud/infrastructure ● Writing own operator where others have done the groundwork Do not over engineer!
Don’t do it yourself Enterprises and companies are obsessed with doing it themselves. (Maybe a PTBS of decades of utilizing commercial tools) But, building tools or internal products often get abdomed what can cause severe security problems. The community does a great job of answering and fulfilling needs and you can be part of it! If you use open source -> Clarify how you can contribute too Photo by Kevin Kandlbinder on Unsplash
Summary Building cloud native can be hard But you don’t need to reinvent the wheel Keep things simple Design and build for change! Think about the end user who is maybe not a 5y K8s veteran ;) Photo by Stillness InMotion on Unsplash
Thank you! Please visit us at Pavilion 2, SU32 mkoerbaecher mkoerbi
“Cloud native” is nowadays a very brought word, used for everything from projects going to the cloud, open source solutions or in architecture terminology. This misleads initiatives and corporate decisions on cloud-first projects as well as their promised savings, improvements or speed gain. In this talk, we will have a look at common mistakes, how corporations place them elf into a twister and why you first need to really understand Netflix, Spotify and co, so that you can understand that you are very much different. Because migrating to the cloud, doesn’t make you native. Feel the passive-aggressive vibes? Good, now we can talk! Let us seriously discuss about architectural patterns, what really matters in your cloud provider, leading decision processes on a technical level and finally what are the steps to become cloud native and not cloud naive.
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