When & Why Handing Over the Keys to Your Kubernetes Infrastructure Makes Sense

In the constantly maturing landscape of cloud-native technologies, Kubernetes reigns as the de facto standard for container orchestration. However, managing Kubernetes infrastructure can be a complex and resource-intensive task, particularly if your organization doesn’t have a bench of Kubernetes experts in-house (and few do). There are many benefits to handing over the keys to your K8s infrastructure to a managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service provider rather than managing it in-house, but many teams aren’t sure when it makes sense to take one approach over another. Let’s walk through the pros and cons of each approach.

In-House Kubernetes Management

Benefits of in-house K8s management

In-house Kubernetes management offers several potential benefits for your organization, including:

1. You retain complete control over your infrastructure. In-house control may make it easier to design and customize your Kubernetes environment to align with internal policies, security standards, and specific business requirements.
2. Building and maintaining Kubernetes will ensure your teams gain K8s expertise, which can foster long-term team growth and create a shared internal knowledge base.
3. Internal management may allow for greater flexibility across multiple cloud providers, avoiding vendor lock-in and allowing you to take a more cloud-agnostic approach (depending on how you deploy your K8s).
4. An internal team has a deep understanding of your organization’s specific use cases, which may help with fine-tuning resource allocation and potentially reduce cloud spend.

While these benefits are important, please note that in-house Kubernetes management also comes with challenges, such as the need to hire and retain staff with specialized K8s expertise. It also requires your team to take responsibility for infrastructure maintenance and security, which they may not have the knowledge to do effectively or efficiently.

Challenges of in-house K8s management

1. The most pressing challenge is the shortage of internal Kubernetes experience and expertise, with many organizations reporting difficulty not only with Kubernetes, but with all the related tools and add-ons as well.
2. Maintaining and updating Kubernetes creates operational overhead that is time-consuming, diverting your teams’ resources away from core business objectives. Kubernetes evolves quickly, making it difficult for internal teams to stay current with the latest updates, patches, and best practices.
3. As your infrastructure grows, scaling Kubernetes clusters efficiently becomes increasingly complex, requiring more time and effort from your in-house teams.
4. Ensuring proper security measures and maintaining compliance standards in your Kubernetes infrastructure requires constant attention and expertise. Internal teams must navigate complex security configurations, implement proper access controls, and ensure regular security audits to protect against vulnerabilities due to emerging CVEs and misconfigurations.
5. Large organizations often struggle to maintain consistency in Kubernetes deployment and management across different departments and teams, leading to operational problems and increased security risks.
6. Configuring and synchronizing Kubernetes clusters across multiple cloud platforms is challenging, as each provider has its own approach to Kubernetes configuration. Managing this in-house means your teams need to learn about the differences in each and how to best configure for every cloud provider.
7. As clusters grow, internal teams must actively monitor and optimize resource usage to prevent underutilization and control costs. This requires additional time, effort, and expertise from your engineering and operations teams.
8. As the number of Kubernetes deployments grows, diagnosing and fixing problems becomes more complex and time-consuming, which can become problematic for mission-critical applications.
9. Maintaining visibility into data flows, resource allocation, spend, and configuration becomes increasingly difficult as clusters expand across regions and cloud providers

Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service

Benefits of Managed K8s-as-a-Service

Opting for a Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service vendor provides your in-house teams numerous advantages, including:

1. Your Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service provider handles the underlying infrastructure, allowing your team to focus on application development and deployment, confident that the infrastructure is secure and designed for production deployments.
2. Managed K8s-as-a-Service from Fairwinds includes access to experts with extensive Kubernetes knowledge, so they can help you optimize your resource utilization and reduce operational costs.
3. Fairwinds Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service builds secure infrastructure, constantly monitoring and patching systems to remediate CVEs quickly.
4. Fairwinds Managed K8s-as-a-Service builds your infrastructure to meet your organization’s unique needs, optimizing for scalability and reliability.
5. Fairwinds also provides 24/7 support from real experts who can help resolve issues ​​quickly and minimize service disruptions.
6. Fairwinds builds infrastructure in your cloud, and builds using infrastructure as code, meaning that you still own your infrastructure and the code to build it if you decide to bring management in-house.

While managed Kubernetes services offer significant benefits, some organizations may still face some challenges.

Challenges of Managed K8s-as-a-Service

1. Managed services can be expensive, so it’s important to choose a service provider who can help you understand the total cost of ownership and has the knowledge and skill to optimize your K8s.
2. Some providers may restrict certain customizations or configurations, so choose a provider who works with you to build infrastructure designed for your specific use cases and needs.
3. For organizations in regulated industries or with specific data residency requirements, make sure your Managed K8s-as-a-Service can leverage any managed K8s cloud provider to meet those needs.
4. Some team members may still need to understand Kubernetes concepts and best practices; Fairwinds site reliability engineers share knowledge during regular syncs.
5. Although Fairwinds Managed K8s-as-a-Service builds security into your infrastructure and monitors for CVEs and misconfigurations, your in-house team remains responsible for the security of your own applications and services.

Despite these potential challenges, Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service from Fairwinds can significantly reduce operational burdens and allow your organization to focus on core business objectives.

When to Consider Handing Over the Keys

Several scenarios may indicate that it's time to consider a Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service provider, such as when:

• Your team lacks Kubernetes specialists or struggles to keep up with the rapidly evolving ecosystem.
• You want to allocate more resources to developing your products or services rather than managing infrastructure.
• You anticipate rapid growth and need the flexibility and scalability of managed K8s-as-a-Service to support this expansion.
• Your industry must meet strict regulatory standards but lacks the internal expertise or bandwidth to ensure compliance and reduce risk.

Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service from Fairwinds offers many benefits, but you still need to consider the decision to hand over the keys to your infrastructure carefully. Evaluate your organization's specific needs, resources, and long-term goals to determine whether it aligns with your strategy. If you’re not sure whether it’s right for you, reach out and we’ll be happy to talk through your requirements and goals.