Kubernetes, GitOps, Container Management, Enterprise Kubernetes, Multi-tenant, Cost Management, Air-Gapped Deployments
Kubernetes Platform Management: Simplification Through Automation
Dec 12, 2022
Deepak Goel
D2iQ
Dec 12, 2022
Chip Nickolett
D2iQ
7 min read
Learn more about the D2iQ Kubernetes Platform and how it can help you succeed in modernizing your infrastructure.
Automation can reduce the complexity of Kubernetes deployment and management, enabling organizations to devote their energies to creating business value rather than wrestling with their Kubernetes infrastructure.
For this reason, Gartner advises organizations “to deploy infrastructure automation tools to ensure that infrastructure provisioning and management is automated and streamlined to account for the dynamic nature of containerized workloads.”
The best-of-breed automation infused into the D2iQ Kubernetes Platform (DKP) is a primary reason for Gartner recognizing D2iQ as a representative vendor for container and Kubernetes management in five of its 2022 research reports.
DKP Automation
As surveys show, organizations are struggling with Kubernetes complexity. For example, a StormForge survey found that the two most significant causes of cloud waste were cloud complexity and intentionally over-provisioning. In particular, Kubernetes was cited as a significant contributor to cloud complexity, with 62% of those surveyed agreeing that it was a major or contributing factor.
DKP is designed to simplify Kubernetes deployment and management through integrated platform automation. Most of the automation in the DKP Enterprise edition is targeted for multi-cluster, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments.
DKP is based on the belief that as customers grow their infrastructure from a single cluster to a multi-cluster environment, the complexity and ease of deployment should remain close to a single-cluster experience. This capability yields savings and agility.
The automation built into DKP includes the following:
A Curated List of Day 2 Applications. DKP comes feature-complete and ready to go. It has all the applications an organization needs to run a Kubernetes cluster in production and can be deployed in minutes. This includes services for:
- Monitoring
- Logging
- Security
- Backup and restore applications
- Certificate management
- Policy agent
- Ingress and load balancer
DKP can extend automatically the deployment of this stack of Day 2 applications to any clusters that DKP manages. Customers can choose any Kubernetes distribution and have it managed by DKP. Customers can manage AWS EKS, Microsoft AKS, and Google Cloud Platform clusters through the DKP management plane without choosing the Day 2 applications that make them complete.
Built-in Single Sign-on. Customers only have to configure an external identity provider once, regardless of the number of clusters they manage. DKP then uses that identity provider to authenticate any user across all the managed clusters.
Configure Once. DKP enables native Kubernetes objects such as secrets, configmaps, network policies, roles, and role bindings to be configured once, which can then be pushed automatically to any number of clusters. Customers can prepare a blueprint for every cluster's prerequisites and configure it once in DKP. DKP will then automatically push these configurations to any number of managed clusters, irrespective of the platform or infrastructure on which these clusters are running.
Muti-Cloud Support. DKP supports the provisioning of clusters in AWS, Azure, and GCP from the same interface and API, including the provisioning and management of clusters in third-party Kubernetes distributions like EKS, AKS, and GKE from a single interface.
Centralized Monitoring. DKP enables monitoring of the entire fleet of clusters from a single monitoring interface. Whenever DKP provisions a cluster, it automatically binds it to a centralized monitoring system, giving a cluster administrator a consolidated view of the entire Kubernetes infrastructure.
Centralized Cost Management. DKP has a centralized cost management system that gives a cluster administrator the cost of the entire infrastructure. At the same time, it enables a cluster administrator to drill into the per cluster cost, per namespace cost, or per pod cost, all from the centralized cost management system.
Automatic Backup. DKP deploys Velero as part of its Day 2 platform applications, enabling a cluster administrator to configure automatic and periodic backups of clusters. This important feature includes disaster recovery in case a catastrophic failure occurs with any cluster.
Catalog Applications. DKP has a built-in catalog of deployable applications with a single click, including applications like Apache Kafka, Spark, and Cassandra.
Custom Catalog Applications. Applications can be developed without an endpoint in mind and deployed anywhere. DKP not only makes it possible, but makes it easy.
Continuous Deployment - DKP has built-in FluxCD support that enables declarative deployment of clusters and applications, helping organizations automate many workflows. Customers can create a whole new cluster by committing the manifest to Git. Similarly, developers could quickly and easily deploy, update or patch their applications using GitOps.
Multi-Tenant Logging. DKP can push logs simultaneously to multiple endpoints. Customers can see their logs not only in DKP dashboards, but also in Elasticsearch or other external applications. Logs are isolated by namespace based on role-based access control (RBAC) settings. This is especially useful when multiple versions of these applications run simultaneously, enabling people to only see the logs for their specific namespace.
Cluster Autoscaling. DKP deploys cluster autoscaler by default, supporting the expansion and contraction of nodes based on application runtime requirements. Autoscaling includes clusters deployed on-premises, in the cloud, or in virtual environments like VMware vSphere.
Auto Provisioning of the VMs. DKP has integrations for VMware vSphere to automatically provision VMs to deploy a Kubernetes cluster, enabling customers to have cloud-like elasticity in on-premises clusters.
Support for Air-Gapped Environments. DKP automates deploying a Kubernetes cluster in an air-gapped environment by providing all the necessary container images, OS dependencies, and required configurations in an easy-to-consume air-gap bundle. It provides automation via the DKP command-line interface (CLI) to push container images from the air-gapped bundle to the private registry. DKP is unique in enabling customers to deploy air-gapped environments in minutes.
To learn more about the D2iQ Kubernetes Platform and how it can help you succeed in modernizing your infrastructure, contact the experts at D2iQ.
