Ask HN: Is Kubernetes a viable option for monoliths?

[sheut]

I work for a company that does dev ops consulting for SMB's. Recently we've looking into Kubernetes as a method of orchestrating clusters for our clients, who generally seem a little overwhelmed by the complexity that Kubernetes brings to the table. In short, they don't really know what they want, or how Kubernetes can help them.

Generally these organizations are using a cloud provider like AWS running a monolith of some kind. Is Kubernetes still the way to go even though their applications are not architected in the way Kubernetes suggests?

My question for you is how can Kubernetes help these organizations? What are some common use cases of Kubernetes for SMB's?

[gkop]

I can't really answer your question, but will say if you're hosting on Google Cloud already, you have little to lose by using Kubernetes, since Google Container Engine provides a nice cluster out of the box, and many of Kubernetes' advantages hold true to monoliths.

[sheut]

Could you provides some insight into how an SMB who is using k8s would benefit? Most of the people I have talked to don't seem to think it is worth the added complexity. Do you agree?

[gkop]

For example, they might benefit from the set of opinions baked into k8s. I'm partial to convention over configuration, and I appreciate that there is a "Kubernetes way" you can follow and rapidly have a robust and conventional set of infrastructure. I like that Kubernetes encompasses a pretty large footprint of functionality. For example, I haven't used Terraform personally, but from what I understand, Terraform is not opinionated about secrets management; I imagine some Terraform users are using Vault for secrets, and some are using other solutions. Kubernetes has secrets management built-in, so most k8s users are going to use that functionality; it's one less decision for the team to debate.

Edit: to be clear, there are important things that k8s doesn't do, like templating, that run counter to convention over configuration, so this benefit is certainly arguable...

[sheut]

So much of the benefit comes from adopting Kubernetes in in entirety? As in it could potentially bundle and replace commonly needed operation tools like secret management, etc?

[gkop]

Yes, I think that's fair to say.

I thought of something else rather important: k8s is truly "containers-first", IE containers are first-class in k8s. So it allowed me to get containers in production in a rock-solid manner without being a Docker expert. This is nice if you're seeking the advantages of promoting the exact same docker image from staging to production, for example.

[sheut]

What if your application is not necessarily architected for containers? Have you heard of existing systems being successfully migrated without significant changes in software architecture?

[oldman60]

Indeed, monoliths can be containerised and orchestrated by kubernetes. The benefit is high availability ( replica) and self healing. Monoliths can still scale out, however their components will not scale independently.