Kubernetes hosting

Overview

What is kubernetes?

Kubernetes was released as an open source software project in 2015, quickly becoming one of the most important tools used in elastic cloud web server orchestration due to the framework’s unique ability to manage clusters at scale in data center production. Kubernetes allows large scale data center hardware networks to be managed in a unified manner for complex web/mobile application hosting requirements. Kubernetes includes resource auto-scaling, elastic cloud load balancing on network traffic I/O requests, rolling OS update installations, web server & database fail recovery protocols, security utilities, CI/CD version control, advanced scripting options, and other professional features that make it one of the most popular open source cloud orchestration platforms used in web hosting & data center management.

“Kubernetes evolved out of the Google ‘Borg’ project which was used to run over 2 billion containers per week in production for apps like gMail, Google Docs, YouTube, Google Maps, Web Search, Compute Engine, Mobile, etc.”

Data centers at other Fortune 500 companies sought to use the same software tools for cloud orchestration in data centers that Google had originally developed, where only a few open source and proprietary-licensed products competed as viable alternative solutions. Kubernetes is used with Docker containers for web/mobile app virtualization in production at scale by the largest companies in the world with high volumes of web traffic to support. Kubernetes allows software companies to port their code between public cloud host hardware service plans agnostically and maintain web server stack composition reliability with database/file integrity through disk image snapshots. Kubernetes is favored by DevOps teams with elastic cloud cluster web server requirements for high-traffic hosting projects to support complex web/mobile apps in production with better isolation, security, resource allocation, & configuration scripting through container virtualization.

Kubernetes – elastic cloud orchestration

The main benefits of Kubernetes for software companies, Fortune 500 business/finance applications, IT, manufacturing, ecommerce, web publishing, etc. are found in the ability to deploy web servers in elastic cloud networks in data centers which can then be auto-scaled to better provision resource allocation in cloud architecture with hundreds, thousands, or millions of nodes running at a time. By containerizing web/mobile applications and then hosting them on remote public or private cloud environments using Kubernetes for elastic cluster orchestration, the largest and most complex IT departments in corporate enterprise or government can manage their web hosting requirements to meet the user audience demands. This is important in streaming media, blog publishing, international news, banking/finance, ecommerce, social networks, music apps, & gaming.

“Kubernetes gives business, education, & government groups the ability to manage the largest data center operations for web publishing at scale, where public cloud hosting services offer cost savings when compared to private cloud management.”

SMEs and startups can gain access to the same advanced tools the largest corporations use through SaaS/PaaS/IaaS/CaaS plans. A software company can launch an isolated container web server instance for every user to run with independent file storage, database access, API connections to third-party sites, and microservice implementation for a wide range of SaaS support features. Kubernetes allows containers to launch and load in under a second in production according to user login requirements. In other applications, Kubernetes can be used for database synchronization vs. master copies distributed across multiple data centers internationally. This is one of the main ways for large business organizations to maintain 100% uptime guarantees through rolling platform updates and provide better data backup security through RAID storage arrays or single facility failover plans.

Kubernetes – advantages

The main advantages of Kubernetes are that the platform offers “planet scale” container orchestration that supports billions of nodes and can be installed on public, private, or hybrid cloud architecture according to industry requirements. With Kubernetes, the most advanced software development companies and mobile applications can launch innovative new products and features on the basis of unique code. The container orchestration systems allow code to be isolated through virtualization at better rates of hardware utilization. Kubernetes is automated to elastically provide resources to web servers in production that match user traffic rates. Kubernetes servers are able to recover from unit crashes, support rolling updates of new code versions, implement cloud load balancing, enable software defined networking with IP address allocation per node, support SSL/TLS certificate encryption, etc. to allow businesses, government organizations, streaming media, entertainment, social networking, ecommerce, & blogs to operate complex web/mobile apps in production for Fortune 500 IT requirements.

“Kubernetes has many options for integration with Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or SUSE Linux for OpenStack deployments and data center management with Docker containers.”

CoreOS & rkt containers also offer competing standards or Mesosphere DC/OS with Marathon competes with Docker Swarm. AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, & Oracle make container as a service products with Kubernetes one of the main features of their cloud hosting platforms. Kubernetes has built-in configuration options for public cloud storage providers (GCP/AWS) or through the use of integrated network storage systems like NFS, iSCSI, Gluster, Ceph, Cinder, & Flocker. Programming teams can script complex web server software stack deployments using disk images, Git, & DevOps tools like Jenkins, Ansible, Vagrant, SaltStack, Ant, Helm, Chef, Puppet, Deis, Jira, or BitBucket. Kubernetes is used by the largest IT, banking/finance, government, web/mobile apps, media companies, ecommerce sites, etc. for web hosting at scale and SaaS support in production. Kubernetes allows companies to manage data center operations for web servers with elastic cloud clusters.

Kubernetes cloud hosting types

Kubernetes hosting plans offer the open source framework pre-installed on a master server which then can be used to provision partitioned web servers using containers in cluster networks with elastic scale for large enterprise requirements, complex SaaS apps, streaming media, or WordPress hosting at popular blogs/ecommerce sites. Fortune 500 companies may use 100,000 to 200,000 container-based web servers in production, where a switch to public cloud solutions over private cloud maintenance costs offer an easier path to manage PaaS/IaaS solutions for IT requirements. Other than Kubernetes, which only launched in 2015 as an open source project, the main platform is AWS EC2 for elastic cloud web server architecture that can be auto-provisioned using disk snapshot images and orchestrated in auto-scaling networks using virtualized resource allocation in public cloud web hosting. These solutions are used by startups, mobile apps, and large media companies in building on AWS/GCP in launching their software services to a broader sector of the public. Only Microsoft Azure, IBM BlueMix, Oracle, & HP clouds effectively compete with Google & AWS at this time for Kubernetes hosting market share, continual platform innovation, and enterprise scale in operational support for remote data center management outsourcing.

Platform-as-a-service (paas) hosting

The ability to run web/mobile software apps on public cloud service providers through Kubernetes plans is most popular with large corporations, IT startups, and independent SMEs requiring support for high-traffic ecommerce websites. These companies expect to use the most advanced cloud web server platform technology for high performance at scale in operations. The main alternatives are building a private cloud installation with virtualization tools and running Kubernetes with Docker, OpenStack, & Apache Mesos administration independently. As many companies and developers were running Kubernetes on AWS EC2 solutions, native AWS Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (Amazon EKS) is considered an easier-to-use platform, but only launched late in 2017. Google Cloud provides Kubernetes Engine plans which are also at the lowest rates for data center hardware for large scale web traffic requirements. Microsoft has AKS (Azure Container Service) for Kubernetes as a PaaS/IaaS/CaaS product.

“Kubernetes solutions allow DevOps teams to focus on programming new web/mobile applications on open source development frameworks using version control, and then to script web server deployments that scale with traffic on public cloud hosting plans using disk image snapshots for provisioning.”

Price competition between the largest companies and third-party startups in Kubernetes solutions lead to lower costs for businesses that shift their data center operations to remote cloud hardware. Kubernetes is considered the most reliable, feature-rich, security tested, and stable of all the elastic cloud container orchestration platforms available as open source alternatives to AWS EC2, where OpenStack, Docker Swarm, CoreOS Tectonic, & Mesosphere DC/OS Marathon are the main platform administration solutions for data center management with web server containers in elastic clusters competing with or augmenting Kubernetes. PaaS/IaaS/CaaS tools are easier for businesses of any size to access, launch, maintain, & afford than self-hosted or private cloud solutions.

Openstack & linux distros

OpenStack developed from a partnership between Rackspace & NASA at the beginning of the cloud hosting era, and led to the open source code becoming public as an extensible framework through which many third-party software companies can offer web hosting, programming, & development tools as an ecosystem. OpenStack has largely succeeded CloudStack as an industry standard for data center management and cloud orchestration of rackspace hardware resources in elastic clusters. OpenStack includes network monitoring of requests for load balancing, anti-DDoS protection, malware scans, & hardware resource optimization tools.

“OpenStack is bundled with enterprise distributions of Ubuntu, Red Hat OpenShift, and SUSE Cloud 7 MicroOS for different organizations to use as complete data center solutions.”

These Linux distros can be installed on either private or public cloud hardware depending on the need of the project, and operate at different scales of web traffic equivalently. Integrators, consultants, and IT companies use these enterprise Linux distributions with OpenStack to build cloud solutions for their clients or software apps. Enterprise Linux OpenStack distros will also support Kubernetes container orchestration for elastic cloud web server clusters. DevOps teams can script the runtime environment of the web server with disk images and guarantee hardware compatibility for specific programming language or database support through microservice configurations. The remote code is then maintained through version control.

Alternatives

Since 2008, businesses have been searching for elastic cloud web server solutions that compete with AWS EC2 and the Rackspace/LiquidWeb CloudSites platforms. These two services defined elastic web server cluster management for small businesses, enterprise corporations, and government organizations. Many startup software development companies sought to replicate Google’s internal “Borg” data center operating system which led to the foundation of Docker, Apache Mesos, Rancher, CoreOS, Mesosphere DC/OS, Mirantis, Platform9, CloudFoundry, Heroku, and other new companies. All of these solutions operate around cloud orchestration for web servers using elastic clusters, container virtualization, runtime engines, remote disk image storage management, database synchronization, rolling backups, and automated web server provisioning. Together they add different forms of network monitoring, data analysis, business intelligence tools, and cloud load balancing to their platform product suites through extensions of third-party developed modules.

“The open source foundation of Kubernetes allows it to be used across a wide number of software solutions providers who integrate it with their other Linux/Windows virtualization, data center, & web server management products.”

These open source solutions compete with more expensive proprietary-licensed products from Microsoft, HP, Oracle, IBM, VMware, etc. although only AWS EC2 is considered more tested, reliable, & scalable than Kubernetes for elastic cloud server management. Public cloud plans compete with the price of running a private cloud data center in practice, including fiber connections, AC, backup power, facility provisioning, private security, 24/7 expert staff, hardware upgrades, etc.

Kubernetes cloud hosting solutions

Enterprise scale

Some companies require the highest level of performance for their web/mobile apps in production with online traffic levels that may exceed millions of registered active users. The most popular blogs serve millions of unique hits per day, where the largest social networks have over a billion users. Startup companies need to disrupt established patterns of business and gain significant market share in sectors controlled by the largest IT companies with the most advanced financial resources in the world. The Open Cloud Initiative and other groups have standardized projects between IT majors and competition in the software industry where Kubernetes, Docker, & KVM are now the most common alternatives to Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware virtualization products for data centers.

“IT majors offer the same software and cloud web hosting products to SMEs and enterprise corporations at different price levels and account tiers.”

This leads to better working methods in DevOps across programming teams in the industry and further third-party productivity tools, optimization frameworks, and cloud hosting platforms being developed that target professional business users in this sector. The public cloud hosting companies offer major advantages over private cloud, in-house data center, and colocation center solutions for software startup companies. Kubernetes allows businesses to develop, launch, & deploy in production their complex web/mobile apps and databases without vendor lock-in, with better portability between hosting companies, enabling lower overall prices on cloud web server hardware.

Web & mobile apps

Web & mobile applications need to support a wide variety of programming languages and databases in production. These microservices can be enabled through cloud hardware resource virtualization, with web server disk image snapshots being used with Git for faster provisioning over fiber networks using version control for updates. DevOps teams can script disk image deployments that scale with Kubernetes elastic web server network management to host new web/mobile apps at scale with the most complex requirements. Programming teams specialize in PHP, Ruby, Perl, Ruby-on-Rails, Python, Go, Erlang, R, C/C++, Objective C, ASP.net, Java, JavaScript, & Node.js, which all may have different requirements to run on different machines with independent development teams under CI/CD requirements for large-scale apps in vertical production.

“Agile teams use Jenkins, Ansible, Vagrant, Puppet, Chef, SaltStack, Deis, Helm, Jira, Confluence, Zoom, & Slack for project management, knowledge sharing, & collaboration.”

Version control can be monitored through platforms using Git, Subversion, or CVS. With Kubernetes and elastic container web server cluster orchestration, complex web/mobile applications run in production at scale with large Agile development teams using DevOps tools and Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) standards for launching new features, security patches, bug fixes, or platform upgrades. Systems administrators can manage multiple web/mobile app software development teams with independent standards on the same cloud hardware and domain services, or host multiple brands, products, clients, etc. simultaneously.

Devops solutions

Considering the web development marketplace with literally hundreds of millions of sites running scripts and databases, billions of Apache/NGINX/IIS/LiteSpeed web servers in production, market share competition between Linux distributions (Ubuntu, RHEL, SUSE, CentOS, CloudLinux, Fedora, Debian, CoreOS, RancherOS, etc.) or Linux/Windows/BSD web server solutions, Kubernetes standardizes like OpenStack across all of these platforms for elastic cloud cluster web server orchestration. DevOps teams can take advantage of Kubernetes and container solutions to build the next generations of software features for web/mobile applications.

“DevOps combines methods from computer science, academic research, and enterprise programming labs to maximize the efficiency of Agile teams currently developing/operating the most complex code solutions for apps in production.”

Other companies adopt these methods, standards, and platforms tools as accepted best practice in industry. For distributed Agile programming teams with CI/CD requirements, version control using Git, CVS, or Subversion is required. Code changes from local WAMP/LAMP sandbox environments are pushed to live publication through a version control utility. Kubernetes, CoreOS, Docker, RancherOS, etc. all provide rolling update capabilities for web servers so that an entire network can be patched sequentially for cluster servers in production. Kubernetes also is recommended for managing cloud hardware resources across multiple international data centers, i.e. for better major media market access, 100% uptime guarantees, data backup security, network scalability, or cost efficiency. With Kubernetes elastic cluster hardware provisioning, administrators can establish capacity overrun parameters that guide system deployment where the software will automatically launch the containers in production at different international data centers according to web traffic & load balancing monitors, effectively replicating the AWS EC2 functionality independently for data center support of web/mobile software applications.

Conclusion

The majority of Kubernetes hosting business involves a choice of AWS, Google Cloud, & Microsoft Azure for public cloud CaaS products which are considered industry leading in scaling for enterprise data center outsourcing without requiring over-provisioning, web server stack software maintenance, expensive dedicated network security staff, or regular web server hardware upgrade costs. Startup cloud companies like Mirantis, Nutanix, OnApp, & Platform9 compete with major IT corporations like VMware, Red Hat, & Rackspace to offer virtualization solutions around OpenStack, Kubernetes, & elastic container orchestration. Microsoft Azure offers plans for both Kubernetes and remote-hosted Mesosphere DC/OS networks to compete with AWS EC2 or Google Container Engine.

“The main alternative for data centers is an OpenStack distribution built around Ubuntu, RHEL OpenShift, or SUSE Linux with private cloud orchestration running Kubernetes.”

Projects with large scale custom development requirements for major clients or Fortune 500 corporations already use Kubernetes extensively as data center solutions, whereas Twitter, PayPal, eBay, Verizon, & Netflix have all actively developed solutions around Mesosphere DC/OS, Kubernetes, & Docker containers. Kubernetes was released as an open source project in 2015, where AWS, Google Cloud, & Microsoft Azure have all added support for Kubernetes with major project announcements in 2017. The data center sector has largely converged on Kubernetes and Docker as the leading standards for elastic web server cluster management and container virtualization in the industry. These solutions provide the strongest foundation for the most demanding high-traffic web/mobile apps to operate at scale in production using the latest cloud hosting platforms for web server performance optimization to meet the requirements of custom code processing and database operations.