Why Kubernetes? [GL ARC]

This section describes the most relevant aspects for making a Kubernetes cluster a hard requirement for Enterprise MAM Solutions.

• The system is Linux-based:

  • VidiCore and all of the open source components in an Enterprise MAM Solution are native to Linux; most of them do not work as well on Windows.

  • Linux offers a wider range of licencing options for the operating system.

• The system is based on containers:

  • Well-established concept for hosting applications.

  • Avoid “DLL hell” common to Windows-based systems where everything is running as Windows services.

  • Re-use existing containerised applications.

• Kubernetes is the state-of-the-art container orchestrator.

• Kubernetes offers a uniform infrastructure layer for cloud-based and on-premises installations - see Infrastructure Layers [GL ARC].

• Managed clusters available on all three big cloud providers (Microsoft, Amazon, Google).

• Kubernetes comes with built-in support for:

  • redundancy;

  • failover;

  • automatic restart of components in case of component failures;

  • automatic re-scheduling of components in case of machine failures;

  • manual scaling (horizontally and vertically);

  • automatic scaling (horizontally and vertically);

  • setting resource limits (CPU, RAM) on components to avoid a single component crashing the whole machine.

• Kubernetes offers a profound abstraction of storage layers - see Storage Concepts [GL ARC].

• There are proven concepts available for uniform logging across all applications running in the cluster.

• There is built-in support for connecting cloud-based load balancers.

• Kubernetes comes with built-in security concepts (e.g. RBAC).

• There is fine-granular control of what is exposed to the outside world.

• There are established deployment mechanisms (helm).

• Kubernetes has a broad community support.