We’ve exited Kubernetes after 20 months in production. Here’s what we originally set out to achieve. And by using the platform.

This article is part of the “Goodbye K8s” series, looking at the reasons that eventually drove us away from one of the hottest platforms on the market:

1. Goodbye K8s! We Had So Many Plans!
2. Goodbye K8s! This Is Excellent!
3. Goodbye K8s! This Isn’t Working!
4. Goodbye K8s! Welcome Back, Old Friend!
5. Goodbye K8s! It’s Still a Business!
6. Goodbye K8s! Thanks for the Lessons!
7. Goodbye K8s! We’ll Meet Again!

Kubernetes

If you’re reading this, then there’s a decent chance you’ve already come across one of the hottest platforms on the market right now: Kubernetes. You also already know that it’s commonly abbreviated as K8s. We shall make no exceptions here.

Now, you’ve stopped by to find out why we’ve finally said goodbye to K8s after 20 months in production.

Find out what we were trying to achieve in the first place. Why we chose K8s. What eventually drove us away from it. Where we’ve moved to. What we’re getting out of the move. The business lessons we’ve learned. The technical lessons we’ve learned. Lessons for the enterprise use of K8s. And K8s’ potential.

Fair enough. However, the answers to those questions require a fair amount of depth and detail to provide any meaningful level of insights.

As it would be too much to squeeze everything into a single article, we’ve tried something new and created the “Goodbye K8s!” article series. Feel free to let us know what you think. All feedback welcome.

Realistic Objectives

But before we dive into the details and embark on a trip down memory lane, why don’t we take a step back and start with what we’re really trying to achieve here at How Hard Can It Be?!. As is says on the page collating all thoughts articles

Sometimes, a good path to a great solution is to rethink what the real problem is in the first place.

In reality, we’re just another website slinger flinging content at the world (or at least the part that actually cares about us). For that to become a reality, we need an audience, authors, and website maintainers.

Quality Content People Want to Read

When it comes to our audience, we deeply care about serving quality content our visitors actually want to read.

While the content normally makes all the difference, we’re not going to dwell on that aspect here. Instead, we’re going to focus on the experience our audience has while reading articles.

This starts by finding the articles in the first place. In reality, most of our traffic still comes from search engines (and one in particular — have a guess). So, in order to be discoverable, our website needs to be search engine friendly. Amongst other things, this usually means instant page loads. The quicker, the better.

Upon finding an article, it needs to be reliably available. Again, the article needs to load as quickly as possible as not only search engines but also readers severely punish any delays. Once loaded, the article should provide a pleasant reading experience that contributes to the visitor’s overall positive experience.

Distraction Free Article Authoring

Without our authors this would just be a blank page. They are the heart and soul of this website and made it what it is today. As such, we want them to focus on writing great articles first and foremost.

Tools and processes need to assist our authors, not hinder them. For that reason, we’ve chosen Markdown as our distraction free format for writing articles. All you should really need is an editor. Of your choice.

All undifferentiated heavy lifting needs to be automated away. All articles should be stored as code, allowing for versioning, repeatability, and a full audit trail. Because things can and will go wrong. At the worst possible time.

Minimal Administrative Overhead

Also, let’s be honest here: This is a spare time blog. We may all be enthusiasts, but at the end of the day also volunteers. As such, the less overhead we need to shoulder, the better.

This not only applies to financial costs but also to the amount of time spent away from writing articles. First and foremost, we’re in the “business” of providing content to the world on some website, not running hosting services for a website.

K8s Power

The next article in this series examines how Kubernetes helped us achieve most of the above. How it shaped and influenced our multi-cloud technology stack. What it brought to the table as well as what it required.