Where should you invest in Kubernetes? The Wrong Question.
At what layer of consumption should you begin your container or more importantly application development platform journey?
First off. The CTO Advisor team created a white paper discussing where you should start your container journey. Check out the research. There’s a lot of great information.
I’ve recently begun to accept that enterprises will use Kubernetes at a layer I prefer not to consume. Enterprise IT customers should engage the VMware, Red Hat, and Amazons of the world. If you want the developer experience that’s the promise of the Kubernetes underlay, you should pay attention to distributions. At least that’s the case today if you want to achieve the benefits within the next 2-years.
It pains me to say that. Furthermore, my friend Stu Miniman and I don’t see eye-to-eye. However, he believes Kubernetes is part of the OpenShift experience. Watch our entire conversation from the CTO Advisor Road Trip stop in Boston.
I believe the contract or proper abstraction for a platform such as OpenShift, is well, OpenShift. The Red Hat folks will tell you that OpenShift=K8s. The CTO Advisor will say to you; I don’t care about K8s. I care about the application platform, which is OpenShift. So if I select a platform such as OpenShift or VMware Tanzu, I want the developer experience to be that of the application platform.
I’m in the camp that K8s will simply disappear into the infrastructure. It’s the OS of the application platform that only us infrastructure experts should care about, if at all. What are your thoughts? Is K8s the place to invest, or are you more interested in the application development platform? Or, are they the same?