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Kubernetes Maturity Model

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Introduction

Kubernetes offers many benefits. At the same time, it can become complex when organizations are adopting cloud native technologies. The Kubernetes Maturity Model exists to help you identify where you are in your journey to cloud native, whether you are new to Kubernetes or you have deployment experience. It’s an important tool that helps you self-identify what stage you are at, understand gaps in your environment and gain insights into enhancing and improving your Kubernetes stack.

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How to Use the Kubernetes Maturity Model

Kubernetes and your workloads are ever changing. As you use this maturity model, know that if you do reach a certain phase, you may still need to revisit previous phases. Also, understand that Kubernetes maturity doesn’t happen overnight - it takes time. The Kubernetes Maturity Model should be used as a tool to help you understand where you need to focus attention, or require help, during your journey to cloud native.

Prepare
Where do I start, who do I trust, and how do I prove value?
PrepareIcon
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

How cloud native and Kubernetes will help drive business and technical objectives, what it will cost and agree on goals across the organization.

 

  • Understand the value of cloud native, containers, and Kubernetes
  • Be able to articulate this value to business leaders
  • Get buy-in from your team, leadership and entire organization
View Details
Phase 1: Transform
How do I set up Kubernetes infrastructure and shift workloads?
TransformIcon
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

Kubernetes foundational knowledge and the ability to adopt and transform your existing mindset, workflows and practices to the platform.

  • You will become well-versed in Kubernetes terminology and be able to map existing technologies to the cloud native context
  • You will containerize your applications and shift workloads to Kubernetes
  • You will clean up technical debt and avoid bringing it to Kubernetes
View Details
Phase 2: Deploy
What process should I implement from CI/CD through production?
DeployIcon
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

Kubernetes baseline understanding achieved. You are practicing skills by exercising fundamental development, deployment, admin and troubleshooting. You are:

  • Building a solid foundation for your Kubernetes workloads
  • Ready to deploy Kubernetes across your organization
  • Implementing the build and deployment process via CI/CD, and introducing some limited monitoring and observability. 
  • Empowering developers to self-service
View Details
Phase 3: Build Confidence
Is this trial and error normal, did I make the right decisions?
BuildConfidenceIcon
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

Building your core competency to regularly deploy and ship features with success. You are building deeper understanding that leads to more customization, experimentation and wider organizational usage. You’ll:

  • Build confidence through experience
  • Establish core standards around Infrastructure as Code and configuration
  • Select Kubernetes add-ons that work cohesively together without regret
  • Start using monitoring tools to help you understand service challenges
View Details
Phase 4: Improve Operations & Control
How do I improve cluster security, efficiency and reliability?
ImproveOperationsIcon
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

Deploying Kubernetes across the business successfully.

  • You are improving security, efficiency and reliability by spending time with cluster configuration. 
  • Your team is able to focus on your business instead of maintaining Kubernetes.
  • Your challenges are now complex requiring Kubernetes expertise beyond your in-house team.
View Details
Phase 5: Optimize & Automate
What should I measure and how do I ensure control?
MeasureandControlIcons
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

Sophisticated monitoring and alerting to provide a deeper functional understanding of your workloads. You will:

  • Assert stronger opinions and stricter controls around allowed behaviors, security, configuration and standards
  • Double down on infrastructure as code and CI/CD driven processes
  • Explore network policy, workload identity and service mesh to lockdown workload ability
View Details
Ongoing Optimization
How do I enforce policies, improve reliability and maximize efficiency?
OptimizeandAutomateIcon
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

Employing more sophisticated tooling to remove human error and toil, improve reliability and maximize efficiency.

View Details
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

How cloud native and Kubernetes will help drive business and technical objectives, what it will cost and agree on goals across the organization.

 

  • Understand the value of cloud native, containers, and Kubernetes
  • Be able to articulate this value to business leaders
  • Get buy-in from your team, leadership and entire organization
View Details
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

Kubernetes foundational knowledge and the ability to adopt and transform your existing mindset, workflows and practices to the platform.

  • You will become well-versed in Kubernetes terminology and be able to map existing technologies to the cloud native context
  • You will containerize your applications and shift workloads to Kubernetes
  • You will clean up technical debt and avoid bringing it to Kubernetes
View Details
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

Kubernetes baseline understanding achieved. You are practicing skills by exercising fundamental development, deployment, admin and troubleshooting. You are:

  • Building a solid foundation for your Kubernetes workloads
  • Ready to deploy Kubernetes across your organization
  • Implementing the build and deployment process via CI/CD, and introducing some limited monitoring and observability. 
  • Empowering developers to self-service
View Details
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

Building your core competency to regularly deploy and ship features with success. You are building deeper understanding that leads to more customization, experimentation and wider organizational usage. You’ll:

  • Build confidence through experience
  • Establish core standards around Infrastructure as Code and configuration
  • Select Kubernetes add-ons that work cohesively together without regret
  • Start using monitoring tools to help you understand service challenges
View Details
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

Deploying Kubernetes across the business successfully.

  • You are improving security, efficiency and reliability by spending time with cluster configuration. 
  • Your team is able to focus on your business instead of maintaining Kubernetes.
  • Your challenges are now complex requiring Kubernetes expertise beyond your in-house team.
View Details
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

Sophisticated monitoring and alerting to provide a deeper functional understanding of your workloads. You will:

  • Assert stronger opinions and stricter controls around allowed behaviors, security, configuration and standards
  • Double down on infrastructure as code and CI/CD driven processes
  • Explore network policy, workload identity and service mesh to lockdown workload ability
View Details
You Will Learn/Be Proficient In:

Employing more sophisticated tooling to remove human error and toil, improve reliability and maximize efficiency.

View Details
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Why Fairwinds

Fairwinds is the Kubernetes enablement company. Our heritage is deeply rooted in everything Kubernetes. Since 2015, we have built, tested and managed hundreds of Kubernetes production instances. We help build secure, reliable and scalable environments employing Kubernetes best practices and open source technologies.

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