Journey to Scale: Overcoming the Challenges of Managing AKS Infrastructure as You Scale
Podcast
Organizations are quickly coming to rely on Microsoft's Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to handle critical functionality in their organizations—everything from deploying to scaling and managing Docker containers and container-based applications. When an AKS cluster is first deployed, typically only a handful of apps are involved, with a few hundred pods on a small set of nodes. Initially, it may seem easy for an operations team, including DevOps and SREs, to manage it all manually. But sooner or later applications will become more dynamic as they scale up with more users, and more applications will come from multiple teams, leading to more clusters to manage with hundreds of nodes and thousands of pods.
So, it's not surprising that many application developers become overwhelmed with the need to develop a high level of Kubernetes expertise while also managing their daily tasks.
In this podcast, veteran technology journalist John K. Waters talks with two subject matter experts, Shon Harris of Spot by NetApp and Ayo Ayodeji, Senior Program Manager in Microsoft's Azure Technology Strategy group, to clarify the common challenges faced by app dev teams working with AKS—challenges that can lead to overwork and real burnout, even among the members of the most sophisticated teams. And they'll outline the best practices for scaling AKS infrastructure and keeping costs in check.
The conversation will cover:
- The key challenges organizations face when it comes to selecting the right infrastructure at the right time for their AKS clusters.
- How Microsoft has embraced the open-source mentality through Kubernetes.
- Where most Azure customers are with Kubernetes right now.
- The new AKS Node Auto-provisioning feature.
- Spot Ocean for AKS: how it expands on Microsoft’s Node Auto-provisioning use case.
Watch now!
About the presenters:
Shon Harris, DevRel Lead, Spot by NetApp
Shon W. Harris is a dedicated technologist and ultra-geek. He came to NetApp after almost a decade working in cloud-native roles such as Principal Cloud Architect and DevOps Engineering Lead, where he took complex software packages and processes, shifting them into a cloud-first mindset, building secure, highly available systems to enhance the way customers run their business. He also has a background in digital forensics and incident response. Shon advocates for customers to assist the developers and technologists who use Spot solutions to release faster running their workloads on optimized infrastructure and see value in maximizing cloud spend.
Ayobami Ayodeji, Senior Program Manager, Customer Success, Microsoft
Ayobami Ayodeji is a Senior Program Manager for the Customer Success technical strategy team at Microsoft. he has been in the role for the last 3 years, running programs that help accelerate the adoption and scaling of AKS and other cloud native Azure services for thousands of customers via Microsoft’s cloud solutions architects around the world. His work contributed to AKS becoming the fastest growing Azure service. Prior to that, he worked as a data scientist, project manager and manufacturing engineer in the financial and automotive manufacturing industries. he owns a master of engineering in industrial engineering, specializing in data analytics and a PMP certification. Prior to joining Microsoft, he started a non profit organization called BlackMINT which powers the risingstar platform, where underrepresented middle and highschool students can learn about various career options in tech and get inspired to pursue a career in this industry. He was also VP of technology at the non profit organization CAUFP. He has been driven throughout his career by his passion for empowering organizations and individuals to amplify their impact and his present role in the field of Kubernetes and DevOps helps him fulfil that goal.