Is Kubernetes the kale of the enterprise world?

Kale is certainly synonymous with healthy eating, but without other ingredients or the right recipe what ends up on the plate is usually pretty underwhelming, and in some cases simply inedible. It’s no coincidence then, that a bag of kale is the first thing to pop into my head when I think about Kubernetes.

Container technology was once the domain of developers. Now, IT operations are taking control, and Kubernetes is out in front. According to VMware’s State of Kubernetes 2020 report, although it’s early days for enterprise adoption – more than half of respondents (57%) operate fewer than 10 Kubernetes clusters, and 60% run less than half of containerised workloads on Kubernetes – momentum is increasing. Spending on containers is up too, with one in four enterprises now allocating more than $250,000 a year on these technologies.

Let’s chat super food and super tech 

As the adoption of Kubernetes moves forward, IT teams should be aware of the value added by adoption before investing. This can be likened to the hype surrounding kale. Kubernetes is often seen as a ‘fix all problems’ product with massive potential, but like the super food, it’s about how you use it that really counts.

It would be na?ve to assume Kubernetes is a silver bullet, or the only solution for achieving agility, positive customer experience and innovation. Defining business outcomes before investing time, energy and money is the only way to maximise investment.

Moreover, what works for the tech elite may not work for other companies. Organisations that use solutions based on trusted platforms by trusted partners that have solved virtualisation in the past, and those partners now have solutions to achieve the same outcomes with containerisation.

The right recipe for Kubernetes

Despite its benefits, Kubernetes is still a maturing technology which needs a degree of handholding. It can’t just be immediately installed - you have to train and enable teams which is time-consuming. To make things easier, organisations may want to look at certain tools and existing systems that reduce complexity, rather than jump on every bandwagon that, in an architectural context, only adds complexity to an already complex world.

Once large organisations switch over to a cloud native platform, developers can start to explore new features and approaches to solving business problems with software, every week. While a week's worth of code might seem small, it adds up over time. Best of all, because organisations are testing features out with real-world feedback, changes are validated with data. The software only gets better.

The ultimate beneficiaries

Developers get the most tangible benefits from Kubernetes, and operations benefit greatly too. Once business teams know how to take advantage of a weekly release cycle to test new features, they can get improve their time-to-market speed.

There are many ways to design and run software. Adopting Kubernetes may well be the right way forward for your company – just like incorporating kale into your diet may be better for your health. Kubernetes puts in place one way to design and run software, removing waste for you to focus on the actual software, eradicating the hassle of managing it whilst worrying about ever-extending timelines.