Table of Contents
- Summary
- Kubernetes Resource Management Primer
- Report Methodology
- Decision Criteria Analysis
- Evaluation Factors
- Key Criteria: Impact Analysis
- Analyst’s Take
- Methodology
- About GigaOm
- Copyright
1. Summary
Application deployment has changed over the last decade. Infrastructure teams have moved away from installing services and packages within a virtual machine (VM) instance or instance group and instead are using a simplified, scripted container packaging system that produces immutable application artifacts. This change dramatically increased both the speed at which applications become ready for deployment and the volume of applications waiting in the queue to be deployed. This acceleration and growth in data volumes meant infrastructure teams needed a way to automatically deploy and manage the growing list of application containers, while at the same time providing an interface for developers to manage their own resources.
Kubernetes has become the de facto standard for container orchestration, and organizations today often operate many Kubernetes clusters across public and private-infrastructure resources. While Kubernetes provides an abstraction layer that ensures applications can run easily across any public or private infrastructure, it also adds significant complexity (such as allowing developers to define or omit their resource requests).
Capacity management and resource planning are often an afterthought, which results in excessive cloud spend or in applications competing for resources and causing service degradation. Furthermore, when resource issues arise, deep expertise in the Kubernetes platform is required to troubleshoot issues across hundreds or thousands of applications sharing the same cluster.
Kubernetes resource management solutions aim to analyze resource usage and configuration continuously across all Kubernetes platforms within an organization. These solutions should surface configuration issues and have the ability to guide application and platform owners toward configurations that align with the needs of their business. When implemented properly, these solutions ensure the availability of their platforms and applications while minimizing infrastructure waste.
The GigaOm Key Criteria and Radar reports provide an overview of Kubernetes resource management solutions, identify capabilities (table stakes, key criteria, emerging technologies) and evaluation factors for selecting a solution, and detail vendors and products that excel. These reports will give prospective buyers an overview of the top solutions in the market and will help decision makers evaluate platforms and decide where to invest.
How to Read this Report
This GigaOm report is one of a series of documents that helps IT organizations assess competing solutions in the context of well-defined features and criteria. For a fuller understanding, consider reviewing the following reports:
Key Criteria report: A detailed market sector analysis that assesses the impact that key product features and criteria have on top-line solution characteristics—such as scalability, performance, and TCO—that drive purchase decisions.
GigaOm Radar report: A forward-looking analysis that plots the relative value and progression of vendor solutions along multiple axes based on strategy and execution. The Radar report includes a breakdown of each vendor’s offering in the sector.
Solution Profile: An in-depth vendor analysis that builds on the framework developed in the Key Criteria and Radar reports to assess a company’s engagement within a technology sector. This analysis includes forward-looking guidance around both strategy and product.