Container Technology Complexity Drives Kubernetes as a Service
When a disruptive technology comes on the scene, it often gives rise to other transformational technologies. Kubernetes use is transforming the enterprise, in part by driving Kubernetes as a Service.
The complexity of operating Kubernetes – the standard for managing containers in a way that is both dependable and secure – has meant that many companies are finding it more economical to let someone else maintain their Kubernetes infrastructure through a managed container service. Let’s call it Kubernetes as a Service.
Vladimir Galabov, head of the Cloud and Data Center Research Practice at Omdia, says the move to Kubernetes as a Service is part of a larger trend involving SaaS.
“It is clear that enterprises are more open to an as-a-Service model today than they were five years ago,” he said. “I think COVID kind of created a logistical challenge in many cases for IT teams, and it made enterprises embrace different cloud services.”
He said that cloud services experienced strong growth in 2020, which was something of a surprise to researchers who were expecting the growth curve to flatten as the SaaS market reached saturation.
“But 2020 was kind of similar to previous years,” he said, “so we pushed out the saturation to the future.”
“I think there are very clear signs that more enterprises are open to as-a-Service models,” Vlad added. “They are clearly interested in Kubernetes, so Kubernetes as a Service or managed Kubernetes makes sense.”
The reason why managed Kubernetes is now gaining traction is obvious, according to Brian Gracely, senior director product strategy for Red Hat OpenShift. He pointed out that containers and Kubernetes are relatively new technologies, and that managed Kubernetes services are even newer. This means that until recently, companies that wanted or needed to deploy containers and use Kubernetes had no choice but to invest their own resources in developing in-house expertise.
“Any time we go through these new technologies, it’s early adopters that live through the shortfalls of it, or the lack of features or complexity of it, because they have an immediate problem they’re trying to solve,” he said.
Like Galabov, Graceley thinks that part of the move towards Kubernetes as a Service is motivated by the fact that many enterprises are already leveraging managed services elsewhere in their infrastructure, so doing the same with their container deployments only makes sense.
“If my compute is managed, my network is managed and my storage is managed, and we’re going to use Kubernetes, my natural inclination is to say, ‘Is there a managed version of Kubernetes’ as opposed to saying, ‘I’ll just run software on top of the cloud.'” he said. “That’s sort of a normal trend.”
Another big driver is overcoming the difficulty of finding IT staff with Kubernetes skills during a time when Kubernetes use is exploding.
“For a lot of companies, the benefits they can get from containers and the benefits they can get from Kubernetes are very attractive,” Graceley said, “but finding the skill set to be able to run environments is still sort of catching up. The idea that somebody else can manage highly automated environments is really attractive.
