Ketch (https://www.theketch.io) is an open-source application delivery framework for Kubernetes. YAML is a human-readable data-serialization language. It is commonly used for configuration files and in applications where data is being stored or transmitted. Customized YAML files are used by many for the complicated task of deploying to Kubernetes.
Now that we know the advantages of leveraging Ketch over other tools such as Helm to ease the deployment of our applications (BLOG: Helm vs. Ketch when Deploying Applications), a good next step is for us to understand how we can tie Ketch to our CI pipeline and have an automated deployment process. For this example, we will leverage Ketch, GitHub Actions, and a Kubernetes cluster on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
Kubernetes has become the de-facto standard for deploying microservices and containerized applications. Still, there is a learning curve for a developer to get familiar with Kubernetes concepts and objects, how to write and manage the required YAML files, etc. While there is undoubtedly value in learning these concepts and tasks, I believe there is even greater value in getting your applications deployed faster and spending more time on your application code than on infrastructure-related objects.
On December 9th, 2020, I had the pleasure of speaking with two great minds on the topic of simplifying storage in Kubernetes. Alex Chircop is the Founder and CEO at StorageOS (https://storageos.com), and Bruno Andrade is the Founder and CEO at Shipa (https://www.shipa.io). The full recording of this discussion is below. Here is a summary of what we discussed: Simplify Deploying and Operating Stateful Applications within Kubernetes
In this excellent YouTube video – Marcel Dempers aka That DevOps Guy explains how Shipa abstracts Kubernetes away from developers so they can focus on coding while providing the controls the DevOps team needs. With Shipa – not a single yaml is needed to deploy an application across multiple clouds. See for yourself…
Shipa, Corp., delivering a cloud native application management framework built to manage the full application lifecycle, today announced that it is open sourcing Ketch, Shipa’s deployment engine, under Apache License Version 2.0. This open source release is available on GitHub and follows the general availability launch of Shipa’s full application management framework in October.
On November 11, 2020, I had the pleasure of speaking with two incredible thought leaders in the DevOps space: Vivek Pandey, VP of Engineering at Shipa (https://www.shipa.io), and Patrick Deuley, Sr Product Manager at GitLab (https://www.gitlab.com). The topic of the discussion was “Monolith to Microservices,” and we covered three key areas: Starting out, Scaling and Developer Experience.
Kubernetes can bring a wide collection of advantages to a development organization. Properly leveraging Kubernetes can greatly improve productivity, empower you to better utilize your cloud spend, improve application stability and reliability, and more. On the flip side, if you are not properly leveraging Kubernetes, your would-be benefits become drawbacks. As a developer, this can become especially frustrating when you are focused on delivering quality code, fast.
Should application developers learn Kubernetes? Let’s ask an even deeper question; should application developers even be aware of Kubernetes in their infrastructure? I frequently hear this question being asked by DevOps, Platform Engineering, and Development teams. Of course, this is a discussion that brings very different views from different people and can result in a very long debate.
In a previous article, we discussed why we frequently hear that developers are not that keen on Kubernetes. You can read it here. In summary, while developers certainly see the value of Kubernetes, they want to continue focusing on their application code and updates and not be impacted by the company’s Kubernetes initiative, which is quite fair.
