By Deepak Goel, CTO of D2iQ

Kubernetes has become the de facto standard for running containerized cloud-native applications at scale in the private and public sectors. For government IT teams, in an environment that requires high levels of security, high availability, interconnectedness, and speed, Kubernetes is a proven solution that can help support these goals and drive mission-critical workloads.

However, because Kubernetes is a radical departure from traditional IT infrastructures, government organizations face a host of challenges in deploying and managing Kubernetes platforms. As they begin to implement Kubernetes and other cloud-native technologies, there are some best practices to follow to help avoid the pitfalls and ensure success.

Leverage automation for scalability and tech stack for Day 2 production-readiness

Many organizations don't think about scalability in the early stages of their Kubernetes journey, despite how necessary it is to plan for scalability before deploying. Automation in the form of auto-scaling should be integral to the platform. Automating your workflows correctly from the beginning will pay dividends when you need to put in a security patch or quickly upgrade your clusters.

In addition to scalability, there are a number of critical factors organizations need to think about to achieve the production-readiness required to support mission-critical applications. This includes logging, monitoring, networking, storage, observability, cost management, backup and recovery, and compliance. An integrated and fully automated stack that provides best-of-breed services for each of these elements will provide the Day 2 production-readiness required. 

A centralized engineering platform to enhance military-grade security across environments

Maintaining military-grade Kubernetes is especially challenging within heterogeneous environments with different classifications levels and various flavors of clouds. It is critical to establish a single way to ensure security across all environments, including cloud, multi-cloud, on-premise, edge, and air-gapped deployments. If there is a security flaw, teams need to be able to respond and install the patch as quickly as possible to minimize risk.

Organizations with a DIY Kubernetes infrastructure can introduce complexity by establishing dozens of different ways to manage, upgrade, and monitor these environments. This can be costly in time, resources, and vulnerability to attackers. It's critical to have a single way to manage Kubernetes regardless of the environment, and organizations within the public sector can best achieve this unified capability by deploying a Kubernetes platform that provides centralized multi-cloud, multicluster fleet management.

A good way to achieve this is through platform engineering, which is rising in popularity as a way to ease the burden on DevSecOps teams. Platform engineering provides guardrails, consistency, and standardization to make it easier for those teams to operate. You achieve consistency and reduce complexity by enabling the DevSecOps team to work within the infrastructure set by the platform engineering team.

Security should no longer be an afterthought when deploying and managing Kubernetes in production environments. DevSecOps and zero-trust practices are an effective and practical means of securing Kubernetes infrastructure. What we call "instant platform engineering" can be accomplished by deploying a fully automated and integrated production-ready Kubernetes stack that is secure by default. This enables DevSecOps teams to focus on higher-value business critical applications rather than worrying about cluster and infrastructure security issues.

Closing the Kubernetes talent gap in the public sector

Although Kubernetes adoption is growing and can provide myriad benefits to organizations seeking the agility, productivity, and advanced capabilities Kubernetes can provide, Kubernetes is a new and different model than traditional IT infrastructures.

Given the newness and complexities of Kubernetes, there is a shortage of skilled developers in the enterprise and government sectors. This can prevent public sector organizations from properly deploying Kubernetes, and can even prevent them from considering Kubernetes as an option.

Finding and leveraging the right personnel is vital to getting a Kubernetes environment up and running and to begin reaping the benefits Kuberentes can offer. Although there is a limited pool of skilled Kubernetes talent available, organizations can upskill their DevOps teams with expert training and the right Kubernetes management platform. This is the best approach for the organization and for the growth and satisfaction of its personnel.

People, process, and technology are the keys to Kubernetes success. The right Kubernetes platform, people skills, and processes such as DevSecOps, FinOps, and platform engineering can help ensure success. As organizations in the public sector launch initiatives to adopt Kubernetes and other open source technologies, doing the planning and organizational work up front will enable their platform to be mission-ready from the start.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Deepak Goel serves as Chief Technology Officer at D2iQ. In this role, Deepak leads the Technical Architecture Group that oversees architecture of all D2iQ products. Deepak joined D2iQ in 2016 to lead the effort to design, develop and build products on its Kubernetes platform, enabling day two operations in multi-cluster, multi-tenant Kubernetes environments.

Deepak brings over 10 years of experience in the computer industry across networking, distributed systems and security. Deepak has co-authored several research papers and holds a number of patents in computer networks, virtualization and multi-core systems. Deepak holds a Masters of Science in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelors of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology.