Kubernetes in 2024: The Current Seascape

As Kubernetes (K8s) celebrates its 10th anniversary, it stands as a strong example of the power of open-source collaboration and Google’s foresight in leveraging their experience with Borg. This maturity, evident from its inception, has only deepened over time, making K8s the de facto standard for container orchestration.

Let’s explore the latest developments that continue to enhance this robust platform (you can find the links to the tools at the end of the article):

1. GitOps Tools

GitOps is an operational framework that takes DevOps best practices used for application development and applies them to infrastructure automation.

• ArgoCD: A declarative, GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes that automates the deployment of desired application states in the specified target environments.
• Flux: An open-source tool that keeps K8s clusters in sync with sources of configuration (like Git repositories) and automates updates to configuration when there is new code to deploy.

2. Security and Policy Enforcement

These tools help maintain security and compliance in Kubernetes environments.

• Kyverno: A policy engine designed specifically for Kubernetes, allowing you to validate, mutate, and generate configurations using policies as K8s resources.
• Open Policy Agent (OPA): A general-purpose policy engine that unifies policy enforcement across the stack, allowing you to write policies in a declarative language.

3. Service Mesh Technologies

Service meshes add a layer of infrastructure between services to handle communication, providing features like traffic management, security, and observability.

• Consul: A service mesh solution that also provides service discovery and configuration features.
• Istio: A powerful and feature-rich service mesh that provides traffic management, security, and observability features.
• Linkerd: A lightweight, easy-to-use service mesh focused on simplicity and performance.

4. Developer Experience Tools

These tools aim to simplify the development workflow for Kubernetes applications.

• Skaffold: A command-line tool that facilitates continuous development for K8s applications, handling the workflow for building, pushing, and deploying applications.
• DevSpace: A client-only tool that helps developers build, test, and debug applications directly inside Kubernetes.
• Tilt: An open-source tool that optimizes the develop-test-deploy cycle, allowing developers to see changes in their K8s environment in real-time.

5. Edge Computing Solutions

These tools enable running Kubernetes in edge computing scenarios.

• MicroK8s: A low-ops, minimal K8s developed by Canonical for appliances and small edge deployments.
• K3s: A lightweight Kubernetes distribution designed for IoT and edge computing.

6. Sustainability Tools

While specific tools are still emerging, this category focuses on optimizing resource usage and energy efficiency in K8s deployments.

• Kubernetes Event-driven Autoscaling (KEDA): While primarily for autoscaling, KEDA can be used to optimize resource usage based on actual demand, potentially reducing energy consumption.
• Goldilocks: A tool that helps you identify a starting point for resource requests and limits based on actual usage.

Conclusion

Kubernetes’ maturity is evident in its stability, extensive ecosystem, and wide industry adoption. The platform’s ability to handle complex, large-scale deployments while remaining flexible enough to adapt to new trends is a testament to its robust design and the vibrant community supporting it.

As we look to the future, K8s continues to evolve, not just in its core functionality but in the ecosystem surrounding it. This mature yet dynamic nature ensures that Kubernetes remains at the forefront of container orchestration technology, ready to meet the challenges of modern, cloud-native application development and deployment.

You want to set up your own Kubernetes Cluster?

We published an article series showing you how to set up a robust cluster in full DIY-mode, giving you full control over the entire deployment process!

Check out Pt. 1 here!

Links & further Reading

Alptuğ Dingil

Alptuğ joined Inspired in 2022 as a software engineer. Besides his customer projects he's always looking for a new challenge. So lately he got engaged with Kubernetes and the configuration of a DIY cluster and got certified as a Google professional cloud architect.