With the digitalisation of socially and economically relevant structures, the IT of organisations and companies of all sizes has become critical infrastructure. In everyday data management, security is not the only issue - the reliability of systems is also more important than ever before.
Kubernetes, the open source system for deploying, scaling and managing container applications, was already introduced in the first blog post in our series about Blackbit's new hosting service. Due to its containerised architecture, the open source platform can guarantee a new level of security that classic root server solutions cannot provide. But developed in 2014 in-house at Google by Joe Beda, Brendan Burns and Craig McLuckie, Kubernetes was originally created primarily to run large workloads highly reliably.
Operational failure is more than just loss of revenue
Whether in product information management (PIM), master data management (MDM), customer data platforms (CDP) or the day-to-day operations of digital commerce platforms, real revenue stands or falls on the reliable operation of any system. The costs incurred per hour of downtime vary depending on the size of the company.
The total costs of a system failure are made up of lost revenue and lost productivity. However, the calculation must also include working hours during the disruption and the costs of restoring operations. In addition, there are claims from third parties, such as contractual penalties and liability claims.
Kubernetes counters this risk situation, which can affect small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, with a particularly high degree of reliability in operation.
The pillars of reliability
Kubernetes can provide highly stable and reliable operation of sometimes highly complex infrastructures at all times, as its special infrastructure based on nodes and containers offers decisive advantages over classic root servers.
- Stable performance
The open source platform permanently monitors the current operation. If necessary, defective containers are removed fully automatically and replaced during operation.
- Balancedload balancing
Kubernetes automatically distributes the current computing load to a pool of existing hosting instances to ensure optimal utilisation and maximum availability at all times.
- Performance-oriented autoscaling
Kubernetes automatically launches applications on multiple instances to dynamically adapt computing power to the current load and optimally distribute resources. This guarantees optimal performance in times with a high number of page accesses and saves resources when the number of accesses is low.
- Updates during operation
Application users want constant availability, developers want to publish new versions or updates several times a day. Kubernetes does not have to make any compromises, but enables both. So-called "rolling updates" allow deployments to be updated without any downtime: when updates are made, a new instance is started first, and only then is the old one deleted and replaced.
- Fastest possible disaster recovery
In classic root server operation, the previous state must be restored on the basis of documentation before a system can go live again. If the documentation is missing or incomplete, successful recovery can take a long time. Meanwhile, the economic damage increases with the duration of the downtime.
Kubernetes minimises downtime because replicating a system takes only minutes instead of many hours and effectively reduces financial damage.
Kubernetes and GitOps
Blackbit combines the new Kubernetes technology with the GitOps principle: The complete system is described declaratively in configuration files. All operating parameters are defined in this state repository and stored as code that can be retrieved at any time. Based on this code, the entire system can be restored immediately and at any time in the event of external attacks or internally caused crashes.
The decoupling of development and deployment in GitOps also leads to shortened processes in development, which can mean an enormous increase in efficiency - more about this in the next blog post.
Go for K8s now - and more reliability
Stable operation, secure hosting as well as time-saving development and smooth deployment - benefit now from the structural advantages that Kubernetes offers. Contact our sales team directly if you would like to learn more about what switching to Kubernetes can mean for you and your business.
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