Kubernetes Container Management System Upgrade Offers New Features

The Kubernetes open-source project unveiled its second release of 2018 recently for its container orchestration platform – version 1.11 – which includes a myriad of new features for IT administrators such as in-cluster load balancing and container storage interface (CSI) enhancements.

Kubernetes 1.11 allows enterprises to orchestrate their containerized workloads within a structure that is flexible and expandable as needed, helping business users to break apart huge applications and processes to make them easier to operate and manage.

Among the key features of the new release are:

Several IT analysts told Channel Futures that the changes and evolution which continue within Kubernetes 1.11 offer good opportunities for channel partners to share the value of the platform with their customers to increase their service revenues.

“The more the channel learns how to implement tools like Kubernetes, the better the job they do for their clients,” said Dan Olds, principal analyst with Gabriel Consulting Group. “It’s just like back in the old days when VMware was first emerging as a must-have enterprise tool — the channel organizations that learned early on how to implement VMware in their client data centers got the lion’s share of the business.”

Dan Olds

Dan Olds

Kubernetes “gives clients a lot of new options in terms of automated workload management, IT flexibility, resilience and cost savings,” added Olds. “Channel partners should be proposing Kubernetes for any client that is using – or contemplating the use of – workload containers. Using containers is the next evolution of virtualization and Kubernetes is one of the very best tools for managing containers.”

He called version 1.11 of the platform “a good evolutionary release, bringing some important new features, like better cluster level, load balancing and online resizing of storage volumes. Overall, Kubernetes is gaining popularity due to its feature set, low overhead, and reliability.”

To accomplish these strategies, channel partners that want to maximize their usefulness to their clients need to understand Kubernetes at a deep level, while also knowing what customers want to do and what they have in their infrastructures, said Olds.

“This knowledge will give service providers the ability to provide much more detailed proposals, along with more specific customer benefits, as well as quantified results. The more you know about your customer, the better you can prescribe solutions.”

Another analyst, Charles King, principal of Pund-IT, said the latest Kubernetes release adds important features that have been requested by business users, which he said is a wise part of a successful product evolution for customers with IT budgets to spend, especially larger organizations.

“Improving system reliability and availability while enhancing scalability and flexibility for production applications are key features for technologies that hope to qualify for ‘enterprise prime time,'” said King. This strategy “shows that the team behind these technologies knows exactly what they’re doing and are focused on delivering compelling, workable solutions to Kubernetes customers.”

Charles King

Charles King

Version 1.11, which is now generally available for production use on GitHub, incorporates features that had been requested within the API Machinery and Node Special Interest Groups (SIGs) of the Kubernetes community in the past.

The new version is designed to “make it increasingly possible to plug any infrastructure, cloud or on-premise[s], into the Kubernetes system,” according to the Kubernetes team. Enterprise production users of Kubernetes today include The New York Times, Nordstrom, Squarespace and Crowdfire.

The Kubernetes 1.11 release team will hold a special webinar, July 31, at 1 p.m. ET, to highlight the major features in the release, including in-cluster load balancing and the CoreDNS plugin. Users can register here to participate in the webinar.

Also offered are a series of interactive tutorials to help IT administrators learn about and get started with Kubernetes.