In our previous article, we explored how Kubernetes and containers play a crucial role in the Cloud Native world.
The adoption of these technologies, in fact, constantly sees new protagonists, products and approaches. In this evolution, the Differences between Container and VM have outlined a specific path and it has involved specific technologies and solutions. In CloudFire, as in other realities, we have studied and tested different approaches. In this article, we explain our journey and the solutions adopted to date.
Docker: the pioneer of containerization
With every technological innovation, and especially as revolutionary as containers, new challenges arise to be faced.
Initially, the containerization of applications was reserved for a niche audience with high technical skills.
Docker was created precisely to revolutionize this situation. In fact, Docker makes available open-source software that offers a simple and efficient solution for running, deploying and deploying containers. This tool, in fact, has significantly reduced technical barriers, making containerization accessible to a wider audience.
Many companies, including CloudFire, have adopted Docker on a large scale, hosting containers in various environments such as VMs or physical servers.
However, this proliferation of containers has made it increasingly difficult to optimize resources and maintain control over applications.
In fact, following its use, we have arrived at some considerations that we still consider to be the pillars of a strategy linked to containers, such as the importance of:
- create a correct communication structure between containers;
- keep track of the container deployment, defining the necessary configurations on a file;
- monitor the status of each container and have automatic repair mechanisms in case of problems.
To date, however, Docker has run its day as a CRI (Container Runtime Interface) implementation. It is no longer supported by Kubernetes itself and, as you can imagine, there are other implementations such as ContainerD, CRI-O following the standard instead.
Kubernetes: the de facto standard for container orchestration
To address the complexities associated with managing so many containers, it was necessary to adopt an orchestrator: Kubernetes.
As we have already said in Other articles, Kubernetes is an open-source software that facilitates the deployment and management of the entire container lifecycle, ensuring scalability and resilience.
Although Kubernetes is a powerful tool for deploying and managing containers, its configuration and maintenance requires advanced skills, often difficult to find even among Cloud Architect experts.
Rancher: to simplify the management of Kubernetes Clusters
To make Kubernetes more accessible and manageable, many companies are turning to managed solutions such as Rancher.
Rancher is a comprehensive software stack that makes it easy to deploy and create new Kubernetes clusters. Combining ease of use and efficiency, Rancher runs, in turn, in a container and its installation is as simple as running a single command.
Once this command has been executed, the container that hosts Rancher will be running and you just have to navigate to the IP address of the machine that hosts the container and follow the instructions indicated.
Once you log in to Rancher then, creating a new cluster becomes an intuitive operation. You will need to define the name of the cluster, select the host machines and configure the CNI (Container Network Interface).
Never again without Rancher
In conclusion, in CloudFire we choose and use Rancher as the Kubernetes manager because:
- Centralized management and efficiency: Rancher allows you to act in multiple ways 🎨 from the creation to the deployment of K8s 🛞 clusters and their updating, both for internal tests and for production, and above all for their management. In this way, all setups are managed centrally, completely eliminating configuration errors, offering a single dashboard to the various operators while maintaining the customization of each cluster;
- Advanced Security 🛡️: Rancher facilitates the configuration of Role Based Access Control (RBAC) and provides detailed reports on its use;
- Rapid Monitoring ⚠️ & Alerting 🚨: Rancher makes it easy to start a monitoring and alerting system based on Prometheus and Grafana without the need for specific skills;
- Advanced integration: Rancher integrates with some components that make complex operations even easier, such as Longhorn for storage directly on Kubernetes and NeuVector for the security part;
- No lock-in: Rancher, together with CloudFire, allows interconnection with previously installed clusters, avoiding application migrations. On this point, in fact, at CloudFire we have already prepared and implemented interconnection projects 🖇 with the Rancher interface without any application migration.
Today, we can say that the combination of Kubernetes and Rancher makes it possible to easily face the challenges of deploying containers, optimizing resources and improving application management.
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