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open cloud infrastructure Posts

​​​​​​Episode 16 – Kubernetes 1.29 – SWA in 2023 – Cockroach on Kubernetes​​​​​​

Kubernetes 1.29 Mandala is out
SWA – one year on
Cockroach on Kubernetes
A podcast recommendation

Kubernetes 1.29 Mandala is out

Hard to believe, but here we are, at the end of the year and we have a new K8 point release. This time, the thing is big. Lots of so-called KEPs, Kubernetes Enhancement Proposals.

SWA – one year on

I started this podcast one year ago and SWA at the time happened to have the largest meltdown of any airline on record. Subsequently, not only did they lose the business of passengers looking for more reliable airlines, they also had to pay a hefty settlement amount to the Dept. of Transportation.

Cockroach on K8

A great article by Charlie Custer was published on the Cockroach blog. I keep coming back to talk about Cockroach because it’s a great database and my own installation experience when I tried it out a few years ago was impressive

A podcast recommendation

There are so many great podcasts out there and I listen to a lot of them, so why not call them out when there’s great stuff to listen to. This time, I want to recommend something related to the industry, the The Stack Overflow Podcast

Episode 15 – K8 1.28 is out – release name “Planternetes” – Waleed Magdy’s Step-by-Step DevOps project – AWS shuts down EC2-Classic

K8 1.28 is out – release name “Planternetes”
Waleed Magdy’s Step-by-Step DevOps project
AWS shuts down EC2-Classic
Awesome Kubernetes Resources
A podcast recommendation
Apropos of nothing – Netbox

K8 Planternetes 1.28 is out 

Back in in April, 2021, the Release Team merged a Kubernetes Enhancement Proposal (KEP) changing the Kubernetes release cycle from four releases a year (once a quarter) to three releases a year and that was basically both an admission that 4 releases a year was too fast for folks to keep up and also that COVID had an impact on people’s ability to contribute. So here we are with the third and last release of K8 for 2023!

Waleed Magdy’s Step-by-Step DevOps project

I don’t know about you, but when I read the following I’ll say out loud – “let’s go and do this!”.  

“Let’s embark on a journey that transforms theoretical understanding into practical mastery. It’s time to connect the dots, overcome the hurdles, and embrace the full potential of DevOps integration.”

AWS shuts down EC2-Classic

“Retiring services isn’t something we do at AWS.” – Werner Vogel, CTO of Amazon. I am finding it funny to be honest, it seems so much a dig towards Google, the prolific “let’s launch something and shut it down when people least expect it.” kind of a company.

Awesome Kubernetes Resources

Longhorn, EBS or Rook?

KConnect, KTunnel or Kubebox?

Argo, FLux or Flagger?

A podcast recommendation

Nobody Asked Us with Des & Kara. Once competitors and Olympic teammates, now friends and podcast partners, Des Linden and Kara Goucher share their hot takes about all things running with a little bit of life-stuff sprinkled in too. Come for the insights on running and stay for the inspiration from two legends in the sport. No filter needed.

Episode 14 – K8 misconfiguration exposes Fortune 500s’ data, The Reluctant Sysadmin’s Guide to Securing a Linux Server, John maddog Hall’s take on RHELs license changes

  1. K8 misconfig exposes Fortune 500s’ data
  2. The Reluctant Sysadmin’s Guide to Securing a Linux Server
  3. John maddog Hall’s take on RHELs license changes
  4. A podcast recommendation

K8 misconfig exposes Fortune 500s’ data

Professionally, I work in the security space, and because of that, I’m always interested in hearing about security issues, risks, attacks, or anything really going on in that space. So right now my Infosec exchange feed is full of people traveling to Vegas, of course and a lot of activities directed towards finding and reporting on security issues. One of the most forward companies in the K8 security space is Aqua Security.

The Reluctant Sysadmin’s Guide to Securing a Linux Server 

Since we’re talking about security already, why not cover the basics in case you’re someone using a Linux server or workstation somewhere in your network. I am a huge fan of revisiting basics over and over again, just to make sure everyone is getting the same message, consistently and frequently. It deepens and freshens knowledge of any topic. Some call it wax on, wax off or sharpening the saw.
I recently came across The Reluctant Sysadmin’s Guide to Securing a Linux Server and I think it has some great information and is very useful.

John maddog Hall’s take on RHELs license changes

Lots and lots has been written about Red Hat’s changes in releasing source code for RHEL and I talked about it in the last show or two. As with everything, people are calming down after a frenzy of discussion and disagreements and the waters are calming a little bit. The distros competing with RHEL have made their business decisions and are moving on with their lives. 

An assessment by John maddog Hall is worth noting in this discussion

https://blog.aquasec.com/kubernetes-exposed-one-yaml-away-from-disaster

https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/administer-cluster/securing-a-cluster/

https://media.defense.gov/2022/Aug/29/2003066362/-1/-1/0/CTR_KUBERNETES_HARDENING_GUIDANCE_1.2_20220829.PDF

https://pboyd.io/posts/securing-a-linux-vm/

https://www.lpi.org/blog/2023/07/30/ibm-red-hat-and-free-software-an-old-maddogs-view/

https://linuxunplugged.com/about

Episode 13 – Linux Forklore everywhere, a K8 book club, 500 Portainer templates and a podcast recommendation

Linux forklore everywhere
A K8 book club
500 Portainer templates
A podcast recommendation

Linux forklore everywhere
In the last episode I talked about a change Red Hat is making, specifically not releasing RHEL sources like they used to. There are some nuances to that, so I would not have expected a careful take from Red Hat’s competitors, but what Oracle did was definitely surprisingly low.

A K8 book club
When I see or hear of a good idea, I make a note in my Apple Notes and drag it out when the time comes. So with this, I present the K8 bookclub, hosted at https://www.santana.dev/book-club. The Kubernetes Book Club is a community group that discusses books about Cloud Native


500 Portainer templates
Go have at it.


A podcast recommendation
Give a listen to “For the long run” with Jonathan Levitt. He’s a runner, cyclist and podcast host from Boston, MA. This podcast is exploring the why behind what keeps runners running long, strong, and motivated. Jonathan is super-connected in the field and I have listened to some great conversations, which is one of the podcast formats that I wish I could do some of, so why don’t you come and be my guest on the show?

Episode 12 – Red Hat to Docker – hold my beer / Google accuses Microsoft of unfair practices in Azure cloud unit / Google’s State of Kubernetes Cost Optimization report

Red Hat to Docker – hold my beer.
Google accuses Microsoft of unfair practices in Azure cloud unit
Google’s State of Kubernetes Cost Optimization report
A podcast recommendation

Red Hat to Docker – hold my beer.
In episode 7 I talked a little bit about the mishaps in communication that Docker had when they announced a switch to the subscription model. Corporate communications are hard, especially in the open source world. So now Red Hat has been in the news recently due to some communication missteps, as I am going to call them.

Google accuses Microsoft of unfair practices in Azure cloud unit
It kind of always was obvious, but now Google made an official complaint. It goes something like this: “Hey, it’s kind of unfair that we need to pay a license fee to Microsoft for a VM running Windows on Google Cloud, but on Microsoft Azure, Microsoft does not need to pay itself a license fee. So my customer ends up paying more for Windows here than they do on Azure”. Duh.I guess. But also – isn’t giving away free things always the strategy MSFT deploys?

Google’s State of Kubernetes Cost Optimization report
Google published an interesting report on K8s cost optimization, aptly named” State of Kubernetes Cost Optimization”. It provides insights and best practices to the Kubernetes community about running cost-efficient clusters in the public cloud without compromising the performance or reliability of their workloads.

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hats-commitment-open-source-response-gitcentosorg-changes
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/furthering-evolution-centos-stream
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/21/google-accuses-microsoft-of-anticompetitive-practices-in-azure-cloud.html
https://packetpushers.net/podcast/network-break-433-nvidia-melds-switches-dpus-for-ai-networking-fabric-ftc-says-amazon-ring-employee-spied-on-female-customers/

Episode 11 – K8sGPT — SRE superpowers through AI – KubeVirt – running VMs on Kubernetes – Microsoft releases its own Linux distribution for Azure

K8sGPT — SRE superpowers through AI

I am not sure if you heard, but AI is definitely the current thing. I think it was just today that I read that 92% of developers love the assistance that AI can give them.

KubeVirt – running VMs on Kubernetes

Containers, containers, containers!!! I am trying to speak this in Steve Ballmer’s voice, but nothing quite compares to the sweat-drenched level of enthusiasm when Ballmer fired up the crows. I was thinking of cloning his voice and having him say containers instead, but the thought of it creeped even me out.

Microsoft releases its own Linux distribution for Azure

You might have heard of CBL Mariner, the Linux distribution from Microsoft. It’s been the test balloon from Microsoft to hone in on the requirements of MSFT and build up a practice of building a Linux distribution that’s optimized for the cloud.

A podcast recommendation

Give a listen to “The art of manliness”, The Art of Manliness is a one-stop resource for actionable advice that covers every aspect of a man’s life: character, career, relationships, fitness, style, skills, and much more. Through weekly podcasts and articles, AoM tackles subjects from the philosophical and serious to the practical and fun.

https://docs.k8sgpt.ai/getting-started/getting-started/
https://anaisurl.com/k8sgpt-full-tutorial/
https://killercoda.com/matthisholleville/scenario/k8sgpt-cli
Fabian Deutsch, and Andrew Burden | KubeCon CloudNativeCon EU 2023
https://charlesarea.medium.com/how-to-integrate-legacy-vms-into-container-pipelines-on-kubernetes-with-kubevirt-555137fb3f4a
https://build.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/e84dd80a-f3bb-4d3d-978e-ffd811e3bfe1?source=sessions
https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/knowledge-of-men/podcast-904-how-emerson-can-help-you-become-a-stoic-nonconformist/

Episode 10 – Be cloud agnostic – this is the way, according to Gartner, Layoffs hit Red Hat as well, Google Cloud makes first profit

Be cloud agnostic – this is the way, according to Gartner

When it comes to the Cloud, the magic quadrant has hits all over the box, well except for the “Challenger” box. I am just kidding here, if you are familiar with the Gartner magic quadrant you know what companies look for is on the top right corner of the box. You’re leading and you’re the best. Amazon, Microsoft and Google are in that top right corner. However, when it comes to Cloud, Gartner seems to say it’s best to pick one cloud and have another ace in the hole, just in case another pandemic hits or something like that.

Layoffs hit Red Hat as well

4% of the company, or about 800 people are being axed and they ask themselves – WHY? It’s a good question, given that in IBM’s recent Q1 2023 results, revenue for Red Hat grew 8 percent (11 percent in constant currency – whatever that is).

Google Cloud makes first profit

Making money in the cloud is very, very, very hard. I used to work for a company providing an Openstack-based hyper converged offering and I’ve done many models for prospects and took them through ROI calculations and capex models. Google is of course in a better position. Instead of paying a vendor for an off-the-shelf solution, they are developing their own solutions, based on open source. Now, after it was launched in April 2008, it finally eked out a profit. Here’s what Ruth Porrat, Alphabet’s CFO said on their earnings call:

A podcast recommendation

There are so many great podcasts out there and I listen to a lot of them, so why not call them out when there’s great stuff to listen to. This time, I want to recommend “Gadget Lab, Weekly tech news from WIRED”. Yes, you can still buy a printed edition of Wired, but you can also listen to the podcast. Not only is it sounding GREAT, the hosts WIRED editor in chief Gideon Lichfield and senior writer Lauren Goode are always bringing in nice guests and level headed commentary

Episode 9 – Datadog bills a single customer $65M, Hetzner Cloud is hard to beat on price, Amazon Prime moving from Serverless backed by Lambda to monoliths running on VMs.

Datadog bills a single customer $65M and we just need to know who

Every once in a while, earnings calls are interesting and when this popped up, I naturally was curious as well. So transport yourself to the Datadog earnings call Q1/23 when Mark Murphy, a JPMorgan Chase Analyst comes off mute and asks this question, answered by David M. Obstler, Chief Financial Officer:

Hetzner Cloud is hard to beat on price
Here’s a treat from the folks of Servicestack, a specialist in comprehensive .NET Frameworks for building API first systems, who got ticked off by an $8 price increase at DigitalOcean. It’s just the little things that annoy us, isn’t’ it?

Amazon Prime moving from Serverless backed by Lambda to monoliths running on VMs
This is a great lesson learned article from the Amazon team showing how they designed a system only to find out that it hit a hard performance limit at 5% of the expected load. Ouch!

Episode 8 – Red Hat turns 30, Kubernetes 1.27 is out, Survey says: Let someone else manage K8

So in the last episode I gave a nod to Docker turning 10 years old. A mere child compared to Red Hat. Sure, there are many software companies that are 30 years and older, but only one that cracked the $1B revenue mark as an open source software company, only one that was purchased by IBM for $34B and only one that started essentially as a mail order catalog company slinging Slackware. Yes, that’s how old this company is.

Kubernetes 1.27 is out – Apparently a release with no drama, so it’s named Chill Vibes! 1020 companies and 1603 individuals contributed to what seems to be the second most important open source project after Linux. So what is new and why should you care? That’s the question many attendees of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2023 have as well. Taking place in Amsterdam 17 – 21 April 2023 this is the biggest Kubernetes event in Europe for sure. So what is new and important?

Survey says: Let someone else manage K8. Publication “The New Stack” writes, “According to the State of Kubernetes 2023 survey, 84% of companies prefer to let vendors handle assembling and keeping Kubernetes up to date.

People building Kubernetes on their own went from 28% in 2020 to 16% in 2023, according to the survey. That was already low three years ago, but it’s more or less dropped by half in the years since.

https://brand.cornell.edu/design-center/colors/

The story of open source and Red Hat

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/02/consumers-spend-133-more-monthly-on-subscriptions-than-they-realize.html

https://kubernetes.io/blog/2023/04/11/kubernetes-v1-27-release/

https://community.cncf.io/events/details/cncf-cncf-online-programs-presents-cncf-live-webinar-kubernetes-v127-release/

https://www.cncf.io/case-studies/dod/

Episode 7 – Docker turns 10, Awesome Docker Compose examples and Scaling Kubernetes to 7,500 nodes at OpenAI

Docker turns 10 – When in 2013 Solomon Hykes demoed on stage at PyCon nobody could anticipate how this would fundamentally change how software is built, composed and rolled out. Listen to what happened when he explained the concept and showed off Docker for the first time to engineers:

Cool Docker compose examples – What better way to look more at Docker than finding some good implementation examples? There’s a great collection of over 100 Docker containers you can use with just a little bit of Docker experience. How much experience? Well, if you can use “git clone” and “docker-compose” you’re golden.

Scaling Kubernetes to 7,500 nodes – It’s really difficult these days to avoid hype around artificial intelligence. In the last few weeks and months, we have seen enormous advances in AI and some of these advances leave me baffled and speechless, for example, Midjourney image AI. I keep asking myself the question “where is this going to end?” Is it going to end in the Sirius Cybernetics corporation or in Cyberdyne Systems?