The D2iQ Guide to Steering a Successful Kubernetes Ship

The D2iQ Guide to
Steering a Successful
Kubernetes Ship

Introduction
Let’s explore what it takes to set sail
for Kubernetes success.
The use of Kubernetes enable developers to agilely roll out
new applications and services in response to customer and
market demands. But like any great ship, Kubernetes needs an
experienced captain to steer its business into successful waters
and keep it afloat. The cloud native landscape is complex and
many of the supporting services you need to get underway are
not tested for interoperability at scale. Without the right domain
expertise, technology, and support to build these technologies,
your organization can potentially capsize before you reach shore.
In order to continuously innovate and keep up with
the changing landscape, many organizations are
anchoring their infrastructure on Kubernetes.
In this ebook:
• We provide you with best practices and pitfalls to avoid in order
to stand up a production-ready Kubernetes environment.
• We also showcase how D2iQ’s enterprise-grade technology can
help your organization safely navigate the complex world of
Kubernetes so you can get to market faster.
STEERING A SUCCESSFULL KUBERNETES SHIP | 2

Help!
Why Organizations
Sink Their Ship
Before it Sails
Many teams that embark on their Kubernetes
journey sink their ship before it sails.
And no wonder-it takes quite a degree of sophistication to
ensure smooth sailing with Kubernetes. Many enterprise
organizations are unprepared to leverage Kubernetes and
are left high and dry for the following reasons:
• Pressure to ride the Kubernetes wave
• Navigating the cloud native landscape without a compass
• Ensuring that your vessel is seaworthy
• Staying on course once you set sail

Pressure to ride the Kubernetes wave
It’s one thing to chart a course for distant shores; it’s
another to be the first to discover new lands. That
describes the state of business for many organizations
today. To keep up with the changing tide, you are under
relentless pressure to meet stringent time-to-market
requirements for new applications and technologies.
To move full steam ahead, organizations like yours are
leveraging Kubernetes because of its architecture,
innovation, and the large open source community
surrounding it. Kubernetes delivers great promise when
it comes to automating deployment tasks, scaling
application resources, and operating containers across
a wide expanse of cloud and on-premise resources. Most
importantly, Kubernetes can deliver the distributed
computing power traditionally out of reach for most
mainstream organizations.
Unfortunately, many organizations turn a blind eye and
dive head first into Kubernetes without fully realizing the
potential impacts of a cloud-native transition and end up
lost at sea.

Navigating the cloud native
landscape without a compass
As you begin your voyage, you’re faced with a myriad of
challenging decisions. The Kubernetes landscape is vast
and littered with an endless number of technological
options. And there are many components - such as
container runtime, monitoring, logging, service discovery,
storage, and networking - to make Kubernetes work. With
no clear path on how to select these technologies, you can
be steering your ship for months while sailing in circles.
Unfortunately, most organizations simply don’t have
the staffing or talent levels to spend months of
intensive manual effort to stand up a production-ready
environment. This level of complexity winds up defeating
the purpose of the speed and operational efficiencies
promised by the cloud native universe. As a result, many
companies drown under surprisingly high costs as they
adopt these technologies.
02

Ensuring that your vessel is seaworthy
It’s simply not safe for any organization to leave shore
without making sure its infrastructure is in shipshape
– in other words, enterprise-grade and scalable.
Because so many of these supporting services are
open source, getting a true understanding of its
maturity can muddy the waters.
While some solutions are in the early stages with low
commercial adoption and support, others solutions
have been used for some time. Regardless of their life
span, most open source technologies were not built to
ensure interoperability from the get-go. And, because
most of these technologies lack well-defined best
practices or architectural standards, you incur a huge
risk implementing them.
Many Kubernetes journeys never leave the dock
precisely for this reason – it’s incredibly complicated
and challenging to integrate disparate solutions from
the cloud native landscape.
Staying on course once you set sail
After your organization implements a cloud native or open
source technology, you either sink or swim. After all, once
the ship is on open waters, the crew truly kicks into gear.
In the world of Kubernetes, this is referred to as Day 2
operations: The critical post-implementation activities
needed to realize optimal outcomes and maximum ROI.
Unfortunately, most organizations don’t have the
confidence that their support needs can be met when
things break, updates can be implemented as-needed,
or that questions can be answered around key strategic
initiatives. And, with limited options for leveraging
external support and services, you can expect a serious
storm that will last for some time.
So even though the move to Kubernetes may seem like
a breeze, few organizations are prepared to ride the
upswings that quickly mount.
03 04

Charting a Course for
Kubernetes Success

Winning a battle against
the sea requires a well-
maintained ship and a trained
and experienced crew.
Effectively leveraging Kubernetes to drive cloud
native applications and services is no different.
Without the right underlying plumbing and
expertise, your crew will be spending more
time on repairs than building new applications
and services.
As in any business undertaking, perils are
bound to arise with Kubernetes. You’ll face
ups and downs and challenges navigating
Kubernetes and you need to batten down the
hatches when sailing into treacherous waters.
Here are four critical elements you need to
get the most out of Kubernetes so your crew
doesn’t feel the need to jump ship.

Knowledgeofyourvesselanditsinnerworkings
While there are many Kubernetes distributions in the industry, simply
installing Kubernetes is not enough. Organizations require a broader
set of services for their production operations such as monitoring,
logging, traffic ingress, and disaster recovery. Much like navigating
rough waters, standing up a series of operational services around a
Kubernetes distribution won’t happen without the right expertise and
supporting services. You want to move quickly, not run aground.
01
A flexible Infrastructure
Despite the rapid move to the cloud, many organizations still maintain
a combination of on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure to
accommodate a variety of enterprise needs. So how do you leverage
new, cloud-based technologies if you don’t want to (or can’t)
completely move to the cloud? You need to ensure that you choose a
solution provider that has the knowledge and experience - and a keen
sense of what your ship can and can’t handle. More specifically, you
need a partner that enables you to reliably drive software innovation
both on-premise and in the cloud.
02
Critical elements to getting the
most out of Kubernetes:

A capable and cooperative crew
Your journey’s success depends on your ability to ensure
key stakeholders and technical team members are on board
with your new technologies. You need them to understand
why you are adopting a new infrastructure, and make sure
they are properly trained to sail your ship. Without the
efforts of many people working as one, your project can set
adrift and negatively impact your time-to-market.
03
Best-in-class support
The Kubernetes landscape is vast and rapidly changing.
Even with the right supporting services and experienced
crew, it’s impossible to predict what you’re about to sail
into. For instance, the Kubernetes control plane could
go down or you experience “cluster sprawl” across the
organization. In such cases, you want a single cloud
provider to guide you through each leg of the journey so
you’re always prepared for what’s next post Day 2.
04
Critical elements to getting the
most out of Kubernetes:

Ensure Smooth
Sailing for Kubernetes
with D2iQ

Ensure Smooth Sailing for
Kubernetes with D2iQ
To navigate this landscape and get the
most out of Kubernetes, you need a tested
framework that helps you “sail smart”
from the beginning.
Developed to address the exploding demand for
Kubernetes, D2iQ is unique positioned to help you
leverage the best of what Kubernetes has to offer
while adding must-have enterprise-grade capabilities
your organization needs.
Sail Smart with D2iQ’s
Enterprise-Grade Technologies
Ksphere technology solutions are CNCF-
certified and built to ensure that your
move to cloud native is calm and steady,
regardless of your organizational maturity.
Ksphere is composed of the following
technologies:
Our Kubernetes solution, Ksphere, provides a full
complement of technologies, services, and support
solutions. So no matter where you are in your
Kubernetes migration, you can ensure smooth sailing
on Day 2 and beyond.

Konvoy
Konvoy is unique Kubernetes distribution
designed to make it easy for project and line-
of-business teams to build new applications
and services on Kubernetes.
It comes with a built-in installer, which configures the core
Kubernetes cluster, along with all the corresponding cloud
native services required for Day 2 operations. That means you
can quickly stand your first production Kubernetes cluster
and rest assured that you’re not left stranded treading water.
But a simplified install of Kubernetes isn’t all you get with
Konvoy. D2iQ’s product and engineering teams do the heavy
lifting for you by selecting the ideal services for monitoring,
logging, traffic ingress, and disaster recovery - and integrating
them for an out-of-the-box, production-ready experience.
This means your architects can focus their time on your
unique application needs instead of wasting time keeping the
underlying plumbing afloat.

Kommander
Kommander is designed for IT professionals
or lines of business with a growing number of
Kubernetes clusters that need to be centrally
viewed, managed, and configured.
Kommander unifies the viewing and secure management
of multiple Konvoy or non-Konvoy Kubernetes clusters. It
provides a centralized dashboard for viewing multi-cluster
health, managing distributed operations, and leveraging
operational insights in an enterprise. This means you can
deep dive into the health of your clusters and workloads
and correct course before an issue escalates, saving you
valuable time.
In addition, Kommander enables cluster governance and
centralized supervision without interfering with the day-
to-day business functions and requirements that different
clusters support. So you can effectively monitor and
manage sprawling, disparate clusters and ease the burden
of an overworked IT crew.

Pick up speed
When time-to-market is a business imperative, you
need to run a tight ship so you can quickly get to your
destination. Konvoy and Kommander are built to ensure
your move to Kubernetes is done with ease and agility.
Both products provide a holistic approach toleveraging
Kubernetes, so you are well-equipped for Day 2 success.
This means you can rapidly ship code to production
without worrying about rocking the boat.
Set Sail From Anywhere
As your business grows and picks up speed, it becomes
increasingly critical to chart a clear path with flexible
deployment options so you can keep pace with the
changing tide. Konvoy and Kommander empowers
deployment from both on-premise and in the cloud. So no
matter where you business is headed, you have the option
to set sail from anywhere.

Enable a smooth journey
Every day brings something new. You might face
challenges along your voyage such as security threats and
hardware failures, so you need a steady hand to guide you
when your view is cloudy.
D2iQ provides a full complement of training, professional
services, and support options for your stack of supporting
Kubernetes services so your team always stays on course.
This eliminates the pain and substantial cost of managing
vendor support relationships with a networking provider,
a monitoring provider, a storage provider, and others.
When you have the right support at the helm of your
organization, you can keep your worries at bay.

Conclusion
As more organizations make the move to
cloud native, it’s smart to plot your future
course with Kubernetes.
The path to Kubernetes may be challenging to navigate,
but you don’t need to go at it alone. By leveraging a
tested framework and partnering with a strategic
advisor, like D2iQ, you have access to all of the tools
and expertise you need to make it through the toughest
storms and get to your destination with ease.
To find out more about our Ksphere
solutions, click below
Find out more

D2iQ, formerly Mesosphere, is the leading provider of enterprise-grade cloud platforms that enable
organizations to embrace open source and cloud native innovations while delivering smarter Day 2 operations.
With unmatched experience driving some of the world’s largest cloud deployments, D2iQ empowers
organizations to better navigate and accelerate cloud native journeys with enterprise-grade technologies,
training, professional services and support. Whether you are deploying your first Kubernetes workload,
optimizing your business analytics with Spark or Jupyter, or looking to educate your developers on the benefits
of cloud native, D2iQ has the expertise, services, and technology to enable you on the journey.
d2iq.com
STEERING A SUCCESSFULL KUBERNETES SHIP

The D2iQ Guide to Steering a Successful Kubernetes Ship

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