Q&A: Kubernetes managed services: MassMutual’s app modernization journey

Firms of all sizes and industries are actually leveraging the general public cloud and Kubernetes to modernize their apps. 

Kubernetes lets DevOps groups automate deployments, scale and simply handle all containerized purposes. However these corporations stumble with many enterprise challenges and technical dangers that delay their modernization course of. The trail is stuffed with obstacles — from scaling, managing a whole bunch to hundreds of Kubernetes clusters and their complete life cycle, making use of blueprints, defining entry controls, and issuing the correct governance and safety. 

To assist Kubernetes customers overcome such obstacles, enterprise Kubernetes administration companies, corresponding to Rafay Techniques Inc. present container administration for platform groups. Life insurance coverage and monetary firm Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance coverage Co. is one such person, which has been leveraging Rafay’s managed Kubernetes companies within the cloud.

“If I’m offering a Kubernetes platform for my software companions, they’ve every part prepared,” mentioned Santhosh Pasula (pictured left), world head of cloud SRE at MassMutual. “All they should do is construct their software, deploy it and run it. They don’t have to fret concerning the provisioning of the servers, after which constructing the middleware on high of it, after which do a bunch of testing. And also you don’t should battle to construct an surroundings to implement your thought and check it in actual time. So, from an innovation perspective, agility performs a key function, and that’s the place platforms like Kubernetes are available in.”

Pasula and Haseeb Budhani (pictured proper), chief government officer of Rafay Techniques, spoke with theCUBE trade analysts John Furrier and Lisa Martin on the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2022 event, throughout an unique broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. (* Disclosure under.) 

They mentioned cloud transformation, platform group, the brand new worth, and the added options versus actual worth. [The following content has been condensed for clarity.]

Furrier: Take us via the story of your transformation, since you’re on on the entrance finish now of that subsequent inflection level. 

Pasula: The entire cloud journey in massive corporations, massive monetary establishments, the healthcare trade or the insurance coverage sector, it takes generations of management to get to that perfection degree. And, ideally, [when] the cloud-first technique begins in, then how do you standardize and optimize the cloud? That’s the [cloud] second-gen altogether, after which operationalization of the cloud. And particularly should you’re speaking about Kubernetes.Iin the normal world, nearly each firm is working middleware and their purposes in middleware. So, that got here in first, and finally corporations began adopting Docker — Docker Swarm turned one of many applied sciences they adopted. And, finally, after we had been taking it to extra sophisticated software implementations or modernization efforts, that’s when Kubernetes performed a key function.

Furrier: What’s in your agenda now? As you look ahead, what’s in your plate? 

Pasula: So, we’re previous the stage of proof of ideas, proof of applied sciences, and pilot implementations. We are literally enjoying the actual recreation now. That is the place the real-time challenges will pop up. So, should you’re speaking about standardizing after which optimizing the cloud, how do you place your governance construction in place? How do you be sure your laws are met? And the way are you going to scale it? And whereas scaling, how are you going to maintain up with all of the governance and laws that include it? 

Martin: Who’re the decision-makers when it comes to the adoption of Kubernetes lately? Is that elevating? 

Budhani: Persistently, what I’m seeing, is any individual — a CTO, CIO degree, a person — is making a decided choice: “I’ve a number of inner BUs who are actually modernizing purposes. I’m going to centralize a few of this functionality so we will all profit collectively.” And that crew is basically a platform group. And so they’re making Kubernetes a shared companies platform so that everyone else can come and kind of eat it. So, what meaning to us is our buyer is a platform group, and their buyer is a developer. So we’ve got to make two constituencies profitable — our buyer, who’s offering a multi-tenant platform, after which their buyer, who’s your developer, each should be completely happy.

Furrier:  So, you’ve bought the 2 constituents, the builders of the infrastructures and the shoppers of the companies on the opposite facet. What’s the brand new factor? 

Pasula: The sooner market. The worth that we’re bringing to the desk, it’s crucial. Your small business has an thought, and the way do you get that concept applied when it comes to expertise and take it into actual time? So, we’ve got lower down that journey. [With] applied sciences like Kubernetes, it makes an IT individual’s life really easy that they’ll pace up the method. In a standard method, what used to take a yr or six months could be achieved in a month right this moment, or much less. So, there’s positively pace, agility after which flexibility. After which the automation that we put in, particularly if it’s important to preserve hundreds of clusters. 

Furrier: You’re just like the vCenter of Kubernetes. Clarify what meaning in your phrases. If I mentioned that to you, how would you react? 

Budhani: vCenter, for my part, is likely one of the finest platforms ever constructed. VMware did an incredible job, as a result of they took an IT engineer and made him capable of do storage administration, networking administration, VM multitenancy, entry administration, audits, and many others. Every thing that you have to run an information middle, you are able to do from primarily a single platform.  So, you are actually capable of empower folks to do far more. Effectively, why are we not doing that for Kubernetes? So, the premise from Rafay was: “I ought to have the identical IT engineers, [but] now, they need to be capable to run fleets of clusters.” That’s what folks at MassMutual are capable of do now. So, to that finish, now you want cluster administration, you want entry administration, you want blueprinting, you want coverage administration. All of these items which have occurred earlier than used to have it in vCenter, however now they should occur in different platforms, however for Kubernetes.

Right here’s the entire video interview, a part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s protection of the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2022 event:

(* Disclosure: Rafay Techniques Inc. sponsored this section of theCUBE. Neither Rafay Techniques nor different sponsors have editorial management over content material on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photograph: SiliconANGLE