The Control Loop As An Application Development Framework

Kubernetes is a simple and elegant library for managing control loops that has allowed for the management of complex cloud resources. The Kubernetes community has broken down the system into small repos with clear division of responsibilities that layer on top of each other.

• Kubernetes is a library for managing control loops
• The community has broken down the system into small repos with clear division of responsibilities
• Kubernetes has allowed for the management of complex cloud resources

When the speaker first encountered Kubernetes, they found it overwhelming. However, they later realized that the core API is simple and elegant, which has allowed for the management of complex cloud resources.

Kubernetes emerged as A Good Idea® in part because it gives you real-time, circular feedback: it's a control loop. Something watches, something reacts, equilibrium is maintained. In this talk we’ll discuss how this model is useful not only for orchestrating containers, but for many applications that handle real-time feedback loops. And thanks to Kubernetes, most of the scaffolding for it is already out there, ready to be used. As a use-case the speaker will talk about a development tool that reacts to source code and server status changes in real-time—a perfect match for a Kubernetes-style control loop. Adopting control loops led to a simpler, more modular app. It made the codebase easier to grasp for new developers, and the application as a whole more uniform and easy to extend. Plus, Kubernetes already has a rich ecosystem of tools for it. Lastly, the speaker will discuss other examples in which this model applies and whether this model makes sense for your own applications.