VSHN.timer

VSHN.timer #49: Keeping Kubernetes Healthy

29. Jun 2020

Welcome to another VSHN.timer! Every Monday, 5 links related to Kubernetes, OpenShift, CI / CD, and DevOps; all stuff coming out of our own chat system, making us think, laugh, or simply work better.
This week we’re going to talk about tools and strategies to keep our clusters (and our teams) healthy and sound.
1. We read a few weeks ago on the Kubernetes Blog how to use Kuberhealthy 2.0.0 to specify KPIs for our clusters (for example availability, uptime, etc) and have this awesome operator report that data to Prometheus automatically. A very simple step-by-step guide!
https://kubernetes.io/blog/2020/05/29/k8s-kpis-with-kuberhealthy/
2. Troubleshooting issues in Kubernetes involves a non-negligible amount of web browsing to find solutions. Runbooks are a DevOps-specific resource with step-by-step solutions for common issues in Linux, Kubernetes, Python, and more. CrashLoopBackOff pods, anyone? We’d recommend keeping these Runbooks in a pinned tab in your favorite browser. It does not contain solutions to all issues, but it’s an excellent starting point for sure.
https://containersolutions.github.io/runbooks/
3. A few weeks ago we talked about Kubernetes dashboards (including an epic Excel worksheet!) In the meantime we discovered yet another way to manage our clusters: mount a cluster as a file system! Remember the Unix mantra that says “everything is a file”? Well, here you go.
https://github.com/configurator/kubefs
4. At the end of the day, there’s no better way to keep Kubernetes clusters healthy than by… learning how to use it properly. Long-time readers of VSHN.timer have most certainly seen previous issues dedicated to the subject of learning, but today we would like to showcase this GitHub project with a concise and very clear introduction to the subject.
https://github.com/knrt10/kubernetes-basicLearning/blob/master/readme.md
5. Let’s be honest; keeping an eye on AWS costs is not for the fainthearted. Thankfully Henning Jacobs from Zalando wrote a blog post teaching us various ways to save on cloud costs when running Kubernetes clusters on AWS. Simple tricks to remember before the CFO comes running to your desk.
https://srcco.de/posts/saving-cloud-costs-kubernetes-aws.html
What other approaches do you use to keep your clusters healthy? How much of your monitoring is automated? Do you have any other tips you would like to share with the community? Get in touch with us through the form at the bottom of this page, and see you next week for another edition of VSHN.timer.

Adrian Kosmaczewski

Adrian Kosmaczewski is in charge of Developer Relations at VSHN. He is a software developer since 1996, a trainer, and a published author. Adrian holds a Master in Information Technology from the University of Liverpool.

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