Sponsored Keynote: Kubernetes as the Control Plane for the Hybrid Cloud

Conference: KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2021

Authors: Clayton Coleman

Summary

Kubernetes can be the control plane for the hybrid cloud by using a lightweight control plane that separates different teams and use cases.

Kubernetes started as a simple idea for container orchestration with a declarative API model.
Kubernetes has evolved to support an expanding set of workloads and use cases.
Kubernetes can manage its own underlying infrastructure and Kubernetes native infrastructure services like compute, storage and more.
A less opinionated control plane could centralize tools and provide new avenues for coordination.
Separating different teams and use cases can be achieved by tenanting CRDs and creating a lightweight control plane.
The lightweight control plane can connect to existing clusters and import APIs.
The prototype called KCP is a way to explore some out-there concepts that might be part of the future.

The speaker demonstrated how a lightweight control plane can separate different teams and use cases by switching to another cluster hosted by the same server. The prototype conveniently generated a cube config and a user context, allowing the speaker to import APIs from the underlying cluster. The speaker also showed how a simple integration can create two replicas on two different clusters without the application author needing to know about the details of those underlying clusters.

Abstract

The history of Kubernetes is one of continual evolution. Starting with a set of simple yet powerful, declarative primitives for automating the deployment and management of cloud native applications, Kubernetes rapidly evolved to support an expanding set of workloads and use cases. More recently Kubernetes has expanded beyond workloads to manage its own underlying infrastructure and Kubernetes native infrastructure services like compute, storage and more. In this session, we will discuss this evolution and look ahead and explore what it would take to make Kubernetes the control plane for the hybrid cloud.

Materials:

Tags: