5 Advantages and Disadvantages of Kubernetes | Drawbacks & Benefits of Kubernetes

 

Being developed by Google, Kubernetes (K8s) is an open source platform used to deploy manage and scale containerized applications. Similar to Docker Swarm, Amazon ECS and Rancher, it is also a container orchestration system. 

In the meantime, if your project needs to monitor the hardware requirements, Kubernetes can work as a tracking tool. The resource management system of Kubernetes starts automatically. 

Every application contain clusters of containers. The containers make sure that the application is compatible with with various platforms by managing all the dependencies. Unless there is proper maintenance the applications cannot run. Kubernetes works as an automation tool by managing all these clusters. Inside the node clusters, an abstraction layer is created by the Kubernetes engine. However, the mechanism differs from a PaaS system. This is the reason why it is called as Container Orchestration System. It also makes it easy to bundle and distribute applications. 

In the recent times, Kubernetes has been grabbing the attention of many developers due to its ability to support both private and public cloud solutions. In fact, it plays a major part in cloud computing. Most of the modern cloud hosted distributed platforms today rely on Kubernetes technology. Like other technologies, Kubernetes does have some limitations, it cannot fit all the projects. If you have just considered using Kubernetes, you must identify all the principal pros and cons of it.

In this article, I will be analyzing about 5 Advantages and Disadvantages of Kubernetes | Drawbacks & Benefits of Kubernetes. From this post, you will know the pros and cons of Kubernetes.

Let's get started,

Advantages of Kubernetes

1. Security

Native security support has been provided by the Kubernetes engine. So you can ensure that all the data and traffics are encrypted. Another popular security measure is the access control. This type of security measure only allows authorized users to access resources. The administrators have full control over it. And also, Kubernetes comes with various security features like Network encryption and Pod security to prevent other forms of threats. 

2. Productivity

Kubernetes is based on Platform as a Service. All the applications built using Kubernetes is included with this model. This model makes sure that an abstraction layer is created from the hardware. Using this layer makes it easy to manage the hardware nodes by controlling it as one cluster. Therefore, the development team need not to focus on hardware management.

3. Scalability

Ultimate requirement of every application is the scalability. The traffic can eventually reach higher or lower. Hence, your application must be ready to adopt accordingly. Kubernetes fulfills these requirements by scaling up or down the application depending on the workload. As the workload increase or decrease, Kubernetes engines scales to meet new demands.

4. Cloud Compatibility

Many of the primary cloud providers are supported by the Kubernetes engine. All the Kubernetes based applications can be integrated with the cloud services easily. Some of them are Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS). There are some providers who also offer full fledged Kubernetes-as-a-service models. Moreover, you are free to try different cloud providers. If a cloud provider fails to fulfill your requirements, you can choose another.

5. Community Support

Since Kubernetes is developed by Google, it is backed through a massive community support. The system gained support from large community due to their open source nature. These community make sure that continuous improvements are made on the platform to match current needs. Apart from that there are also companies like cloud providers and IT market leaders interested in supporting this platform.

Disadvantages of Kubernetes

1. Cost

Sometimes the expense of Kubernetes based applications can reach more than expected. Kubernetes costs more than other technology. It includes both indirect and direct costs. For an example, you may need to hire experts if you are planning to migrate legacy apps. 

Even for small scale applications, the infrastructure cost is higher. For this reason of limited infrastructure, there are solutions like single VM. Kubernetes has its own configuration needs. Therefore, implementing Kubernetes configuration is costly. This makes Kubernetes less affordable than other alternatives.

2. Learning Curve

Most often beginners struggle to get started with Kubernetes due to its steep learning curve. Understanding advanced concepts are not only time consuming, it is also stressful. Even experienced developer find it difficult understanding some concepts. 

One reason for this is the vast amount of content and topics available in Kubernetes. Thus, for projects involving Kubernetes it is highly recommended to have an expert in this field. Otherwise, it can be nightmare completing projects.

3. Complexity

Generally, Kubernetes is complex is nature. Not everyone is comfortable in building applications with Kubernetes. Kubernetes is recommended for containerized application management. If you are dealing with smaller projects with less complexity, it is completely unnecessary to use Kubernetes. This is one reason why many startup companies do not adopt Kubernetes technology. 

4. Advance Planning

Kubernetes requires extensive planning before the actual development. Since the Kubernetes based applications are containerized, the planning stage must be very detailed. Otherwise, you cannot expect the full potential of Kubernetes.

5.  Migrating Applications

Similar to other software transitions, migrating applications in Kubernetes is also a time consuming process. Al though Kubernetes makes it easy to migrate containerized applications, it is not with the case of non-containerized application. Transition of non-containerized application is a sensitive process. One minor mistake can mess up the entire application. In such cases, you may end up rewriting the application from the scratch.