The rise of containerization has precipitated an unprecedented shift in the software development landscape, with Kubernetes emerging as the de facto standard for managing large-scale containerized applications. One of the more nuanced aspects of Kubernetes that is gaining attention is multi-cluster orchestration. This approach to cluster management offers several compelling advantages that reshape how businesses operate and innovate in a cloud-native context.
Enhanced Redundancy and Resilience
In an era where downtime equates to lost revenue and, potentially, lost customers, the inherent redundancy provided by multi-cluster orchestration is invaluable. By deploying applications across multiple Kubernetes clusters, companies can safeguard against the failure of a single cluster. This redundancy translates into higher availability, ensuring services remain operational despite significant infrastructure issues.
Geo-distributed Workloads
A multi-cluster strategy also enables the geo-distribution of workloads. This facilitates keeping data and applications closer to the end users, reducing latency and enhancing the user experience. Furthermore, having the ability to distribute workloads across geographically dispersed clusters can help comply with local data sovereignty laws and regulations. This capacity is increasingly critical in our globalized yet locally regulated digital world.
Improved Scalability
Scalability is a core advantage of containerization, further augmented by a multi-cluster approach. With multiple Kubernetes clusters, an organization can add more resources without straining the management overhead of a single large cluster. It allows for application and resource scaling that aligns with the geographical distribution and demand intensity, making it a cost-effective approach for scaling.
Simplified Testing and Deployment
Running multiple clusters allows segregating workloads, which is particularly beneficial for testing new features and updates. One can deploy changes to a specific cluster, limiting potential impacts on the production environment. This separation creates an additional layer of security and control, allowing for safer testing and deployment processes.
Effective Resource Utilization
Multi-cluster orchestration aids in resource utilization and management as well. Clusters can be tailored to the needs of specific applications or services, allowing resources to be allocated more precisely. This means that computing power, storage, and memory can be deployed where needed, reducing waste and enhancing efficiency.
Compliance and Data Sovereignty
Multi-cluster orchestration can be a savior in stringent regulatory controls and data sovereignty laws. It allows businesses to establish clusters in different geographical regions adhering to the local compliance norms. This feature is particularly useful for multinational corporations that must adhere to GDPR in Europe, CCPA in California, or other regional data handling and privacy regulations.
Optimized Costs
Last but not least, a multi-cluster strategy allows for cost optimization. By segregating workloads, one can allocate resources more efficiently and reduce costs. Moreover, it provides flexibility in choosing different pricing models from various cloud providers or even utilizing a hybrid cloud strategy, contributing to overall cost savings.
Kublr Team: Here at Kublr we often use multi-cluster approach when developing a custom solution for a client. One of the examples in our practice was setting up Kubernetes orchestration via Kublr for a payment portal of one of the big US banks. Payment portals are known for their need for higher availability and scalability, so on that project we used different clusters in different Azure regions. We have built a multi-cluster service mesh via Istio, which we deployed using Kublr’s cluster specs (IaaC approach), and orchestrated another infrastructure components (i.e Traffic Manager) via Kublr, significantly saving the set up time. This allowed us to achieve geo redundancy (traffic can stay in one region), and growth in availability (re-routing services if some of them become unavailable in one region to another region), providing the client with a resilient and efficient set up.