Are you facing challenges with pre-production environments in Kubernetes?

This KubeFM episode shows how to implement efficient deployment previews and solve data seeding bottlenecks.

Nick Nikitas, Senior Platform Engineer at Blueground, shares how his team transformed their static pre-production environments into dynamic previews using ArgoCD Application Sets, Wave and Velero.

He explains their journey from managing informal environment sharing between teams to implementing a scalable preview system that reduced environment creation time from 19 minutes to 25 seconds.

You will learn:

- How to implement GitOps-based preview environments with Argo CD Application Sets and PR generators for automatic environment creation and cleanup.
- How to control cloud costs with TTL-based termination and FIFO queues to manage the number of active preview environments.
- How to optimize data seeding using Velero, AWS EBS snapshots, and Kubernetes PVC management to achieve near-instant environment creation.

Watch it here: https://kube.fm/deployment-previews-nick

In this interview, Philip Miglinci, co-founder at Glasskube, discusses the differences between Argo CD and Flux CD, highlighting that Argo CD is more focused on application deployment, while Flux CD excels in provisioning infrastructure.

Watch the full interview: https://kube.fm/package-management-philip

This interview is a reaction to Alex's episode https://kube.fm/troubleshooting-kernel-alex

Jennifer Luther Thomas, a Technical Marketing Engineer at Tigera, emphasizes the value of having advanced knowledge of tools like a service graph for enhanced observability.

Watch the full episode: https://kube.fm/network-observability-jen

Nicholas Morey, Senior Developer Advocate at Akuity, emphasized the importance of understanding redundant power, network, and storage to ensure hardware reliability before deploying Kubernetes.

Nicholas also highlighted the benefits of using Talos for managing bare metal systems, expressing a wish he had known about it earlier in his journey.

Watch the full interview: https://kube.fm/kargo-gitops-nicholas

This interview is a reaction to Mathias's episode https://kube.fm/bare-metal-kubernetes-mathias

Peter Zaitsev, Percona founder and Coroot Co-founder, challenges the outdated notion that Kubernetes is only for stateless applications. He explains that:

1. Practices for running stateful applications in Kubernetes have matured significantly
2. Percona has developed Kubernetes operators for all their supported databases
3. Large customers are successfully running serious workloads in Kubernetes

Peter emphasizes the importance of proper configuration to prevent data loss, as Kubernetes can be unpredictable in handling pods if not set up correctly. This insight highlights the evolution of Kubernetes from its early days to its current capability to handle both stateless and stateful applications effectively.

Watch the full interview: https://kube.fm/databases-o11y-peter

This interview is a reaction to Steven Sklar's episode https://kube.fm//operators-steven

This episode explores Admission Controllers and Webhooks with Gordon Myers, who shares his experience implementing webhook solutions in production.

You will learn:

- How the Kubernetes API processes requests through authentication, authorization, and Admission Controllers.
- Best practices for testing webhooks and avoiding common pitfalls that can break cluster deployments.
- Real-world examples of webhook implementations, including injecting secrets from HashiCorp Vault into containers.

Watch (or listen to) it here: https://kube.fm/webhooks-aop-gordon

🌟 This episode is sponsored by @Learnk8s: get started on your Kubernetes journey through comprehensive online, in-person or remote training https://learnk8s.io/training

With @Birthmarkb "Joyful and empowering voice" Farrell

Adnan Rahić, Staff Developer Advocate at Tracetest, discusses effective team organization. He explains:

Composition of platform teams:

- Mix of SREs, developers, and QAs
- Focus on developer experience, reliability, and performance

Benefits of specialization within teams:

- Dedicated groups for performance optimization using profiling and observability tools
- Teams focused on infrastructure cost management

Importance of clear team structure:

- Leverages individual strengths
- Facilitates collaboration
- Enables further specialization

Adnan emphasizes that this approach leads to more efficient and focused teams in complex Kubernetes environments.

Watch the full interview: https://kube.fm/telemetry-platforming-adnan

Hillai Ben-Sasson and Ronen Shustin, Security Researchers at Wiz, emphasized that containers should not be solely relied upon as security barriers due to their vulnerability to kernel exploits and common misconfiguration.

They also pointed out significant risks associated with strong secrets within Kubernetes environments, which can grant extensive read and write access across different cloud services and customers.

Watch the full episode: https://kube.fm/hacking-alibaba-ronen-hillai

Daniel Bodky, Platform Advocate at NETWAYS Web Services, shares his strategy for learning new Kubernetes tools and features by building a home lab with a bare metal Kubernetes cluster. He explains how this approach allows you to:

- Experience all aspects of Kubernetes on a smaller scale.
- Make practical decisions on networking, CNI (using Cilium), and distribution choices.
- Address security and persistent storage challenges in an on-premises environment.
- Encounter and solve "nitty gritty edge cases", particularly when using newer ARM hardware.

Daniel emphasizes that this hands-on method provides opportunities to "really think about how you're going to put things out, how to build things up from the ground, look at the tooling available and maybe even contribute" to the Kubernetes ecosystem.

Watch the full interview: https://kube.fm/tools-and-learning-daniel

This interview is a reaction to Mathias Pius's episode https://kube.fm//bare-metal-kubernetes-mathias

Roman Khavronenko, VictoriaMetrics cofounder, explains how observability transcends traditional monitoring by helping teams uncover unknown system behaviours.

He shares a compelling case study where metric correlation helped identify SSD fragmentation causing service degradation — a problem that would have remained hidden with basic monitoring alone.

The discussion highlights how collecting meaningful internal metrics enables teams to form hypotheses about system behaviour and discover unexpected patterns in production environments.

Watch the full interview: https://kube.fm/o11y-scale-roman

This interview is a reaction to Miguel's episode: https://kube.fm/observability-kubernetes-miguel

Paul Butler, founder of Jamsocket, discusses how to identify necessary vs unnecessary complexity in Kubernetes and explains how his team successfully runs production workloads by being selective about which features they use.

You will learn:

- Why to be cautious with features like CRDs, StatefulSets, and Helm and how to evaluate if you really need them.
- How to stay on the "happy path" in Kubernetes by focusing on stable and simple resources like Deployments, Services, and ConfigMaps.
- When to consider alternatives like Google Cloud Run for simpler deployments that don't need the full complexity of Kubernetes.

Watch (or listen to) it here: https://kube.fm/kubernetes-hater-s-guide-paul

🌟 This episode is sponsored by Syntasso, the creators of Kratix, a framework for building composable internal developer platforms https://ku.bz/CJNDlLXVS

With @Birthmarkb "Diet Coke Lover" Farrell

Yasmin Rajabi COO at StormForge discusses the common pitfall of overprovisioning in Kubernetes clusters.

She reveals how teams blindly set their HorizontalPodAutoscaler target utilization to 60% simply because it appears in the Kubernetes documentation, effectively wasting 40% of CPU resources.

She outlines two optimization strategies: monitoring static applications through Grafana dashboards for accurate resource allocation and implementing automated scaling for dynamic workloads with varying resource needs throughout different time periods.

Watch the full interview: https://kube.fm/resources-automation-yasmin

This interview is a reaction to Alexandre Souza's episode https://kube.fm/hpa-at-scale-alex

nOps announces the launch of theKarpenter Lab series, a self—paced training environment debuting atKubeCon + CloudNativeCon. The series begins with a 101 lab that provides hands-on experience with Karpenter, AWS's node provisioning framework for Kubernetes clusters.

The announcement is critical as many organizations are either adopting or evaluating Karpenter for their infrastructure. The lab will be freely available to the CNCF community during KubeCon, offering a practical environment to learn node provisioning in Kubernetes clusters.

Explore the labs here: https://ku.bz/FsCP1ZYkv

Watch the full interview: https://kube.fm/nops-launches-industry-s-first-self-paced-karpenter-lab

Karthik Ranganathan, Founder & Co-CEO at YugabyteDB, shares a three-part strategy for managing constrained resources in Kubernetes clusters.

He explains how to handle resource limitations through repeatable deployment units rather than monolithic deployments, using intelligent resource limits with cloud-native software that responds to pressure and implementing actionable observability to identify resource bottlenecks quickly.

Watch the full interview: https://ku.bz/4NN2xYwFh

This interview is a reaction to Stéphane Goetz's episode https://kube.fm/10k-builds-jenkins-stephane

Komodor announces support for Kubernetes add-ons in its troubleshooting platform. This new capability helps teams monitor and diagnose issues with essential components like CoreDNS, Karpenter, Cert Manager, and Istio.

Currently supporting 10 core add-ons, Komodor plans to expand coverage to 40 components by 2025 to address the growing complexity of production Kubernetes environments.

Watch the full announcement: https://ku.bz/T7vcW7kWq

Visit the Komodor's website: https://ku.bz/D3jQ2LDF0

Eron Wright, software engineer at Pulumi, explains how Pulumi implements GitOps at two distinct levels.

At the first level, infrastructure code (pods, service accounts, IAM roles) and configurations are version-controlled through Git, with GitHub integration providing visual previews of stack changes in PRs.

At the second level, the Pulumi Kubernetes Operator manages stack deployments across environments by monitoring Git repositories and automatically deploying changes.

Watch the full interview: https://ku.bz/YKSdWYY6r

This interview is a reaction to Sven Hans Knecht's episode https://kube.fm/platform-engineering-hans

Is the Kubernetes job market still hot in 2024? 🔥

We analyzed 8772 Kubernetes job listings from Q3 2024 to find out:

💰 The average worldwide Kubernetes salary is $158,134, with North America averaging $169,627.
🌎 A whopping 62% of Kubernetes jobs are in North America, with Europe at 32.5%.
👩‍💻 Software Engineers remain the most sought-after role (42%), followed by DevOps and Platform Engineers.
🏡 68% of jobs allow some form of remote work, with hybrid roles gaining popularity.
🐍 Python continues to be the most in-demand programming language for Kubernetes roles.

Want to know which skills and tools are essential to land your next Kubernetes job? Check out our detailed State of the Kubernetes Job Market report for Q3 2024: https://ku.bz/vg_wXyNvj

Matthew LeRay Co-founder CTO at Speedscale discusses strategies to control over-provisioning in Kubernetes clusters.

He reveals that 45% of cloud costs come from short-lived development environments according to the DORA report. Matt explains two key approaches: targeting development environment costs and using tools to implement centralized platform team control to reduce waste in Kubernetes deployments.

Watch the full interview: https://ku.bz/QNbB-vJkM

This interview is a reaction to Alex's episode: https://kube.fm/hpa-at-scale-alex

Fahd Ekadioin, a Partner Engineer at Google Cloud, shares his insights on the complexities of running Kubernetes on bare metal in on-premises environments.

Fahd advises organizations to critically assess their need for on-premises Kubernetes and consider managed solutions like OpenShift, Rancher, or Anthos.

He highlights the importance of support and maintenance, noting that Kubernetes in production requires careful decision-making.

Watch the full interview: https://kube.fm/best-gke-fahd

This interview is a reaction to Mathias's episode https://kube.fm/bare-metal-kubernetes-mathias

@miamorecadenza shares their journey in building a "compute as a faucet" home lab where infrastructure becomes invisible and tasks can be executed without manual intervention.

You will learn:

- How to evaluate operating systems for your home lab — from Rocky Linux to Talos Linux, and why minimal, immutable operating systems are gaining traction.
- How to implement a three-tier storage strategy combining Longhorn (replicated storage), NFS (bulk storage), and S3 (cloud storage) to handle different workload requirements.
- How to secure your home lab with certificate-based authentication, WireGuard VPN, and proper DNS configuration while protecting your home IP address.

Watch (or listen to) it here: https://ku.bz/2kzj2MgfH

🌟 This episode is sponsored by Nutanix — innovate faster with a complete and open cloud-native stack for all your apps and data anywhere https://ku.bz/wb_0GNHnr

With @Birthmarkb "SIG-Bart" Farrell

Harness has launched a new lightweight, open source DevOps platform that combines multiple development tools into a unified solution. The platform includes:

- A cloud development environment
- Git repository management
- CI/CD pipelines
- Artifact registry

This integrated platform eliminates the need to stitch together multiple tools — a common challenge in Kubernetes development. Practitioners can get started quickly with a 10-minute local installation.

The release extends Harness's open source portfolio, which includes contributions to Litmus (CNCF chaos engineering), OpenTofu, and the Drone CI project.

Watch the full interview: https://ku.bz/SSrblzT3n

Read the official announcement: https://ku.bz/DcpJSDRBX