We're a small, pre-seed startup serving around 25,000 daily active users. At one point, an engineer transitioned our infrastructure to Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), but now no one on the team understands how to manage it—there's effectively a bus factor of one since the implementer has left us to figure it out. Currently, we're not using any advanced tools like Argo, Autopilot, or anything automated; instead, we rely solely on manually configured YAML files. We're facing some strange routing issues whenever pods are spun up or down, and there's a general discomfort with a system that feels overly complex. I realize that Kubernetes might not even be the best fit for us at this stage, but it's already been implemented. So, my question is: can we simplify this setup? Are there straightforward changes we can make to ease our transition towards something more manageable? It seems like there could be a balance between having full control and dealing with complexity versus moving towards automation and optimization, and I'd love to explore that option.
5 Answers
As long as you're not self-hosting complex services like databases or messaging queues, managing the Kubernetes cluster shouldn't be too overwhelming. Focus on those critical workloads to simplify operations.
Just use Helm! It's simple to set up, and you can always keep your templates straightforward and add complexity only when necessary. It'll make managing your deployments much easier.
I suggest starting with GitOps using Flux to simplify your deployment process. It gives you a great way to manage configurations and keeps everything synchronized, all while allowing you to use Helm features, which can help streamline your setup.
Definitely move away from manual configurations and start incorporating GitOps or Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices. The longer you wait to fix this, the more complicated it will get as your startup grows. Addressing this now will save you a lot of headaches in the future.
You might want to consider using ArgoCD in conjunction with Helm. It can help you manage your configuration values more efficiently and reduce manual resource drift by ensuring that the YAML configs pushed to Git are in sync with what’s running in the cluster. This way, you gain better control over your deployments with a more organized setup.
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