[VDBUH22] Paolo Patierno-Operate Kubernetes workloads: extend the platform with the operator pattern

Nowadays, Kubernetes is the “de facto” platform for distributing your workloads in cloud-native environments; from databases to messaging or data streaming systems, monitoring frameworks to security solutions, legacy applications, or advanced microservices-based business applications. Deploying and managing these workloads is rarely simple using the Kubernetes native resources. Helm charts can help but they don’t solve all the potential problems. What about having an operator, not a human one, looking after your Kubernetes cluster 365/24/7 helping to operate your cloud-native workloads for you? In the end, this is how the internal mechanics of Kubernetes work but why don’t use the same approach for your own applications? During this session we’ll explore what the “operator pattern” is and how a software-based operator, with the necessary business logic knowledge, can take care of your Kubernetes workloads, helping with installation, upgrades, certificates management, reducing the human intervention: the open-source Strimzi project will be used as an example to operate Apache Kafka in a cloud-native way.