A list of open source tools recommended to deploy on an on-premise Kubernetes cluster to get closer to a cloud-native environment with all the advantages.

Kubernetes has dramatically shifted the trade-offs of on-prem versus SaaS deployments. Thanks to the rich abstractions Kubernetes provides, deploying software on-premises can be significantly easier than it used to be. Because Kubernetes has achieved such high market penetration (and still growing), it is now a viable target environment for many software products. Nevertheless, Kubernetes requires external tools to be production ready, especially on an on-prem deployment.

The purpose of this article is to list tools that everyone should be aware of when it’s time to move an on-prem Kubernetes cluster to production, and by on-prem, we mean not in a cloud environment. In the cloud, it is obviously better to rely on cloud services offered by the provider.

Use the Right Container Engine

First, forget about Docker Engine, it’s overkill for what Kubernetes needs. Today, there are multiple tools that better manage the container network interface (CNI) and the container storage interface (CSI). Focus on simpler container runtime interface (CRI) like Containerd. It will be probably the new standard as it has already proven its efficiency and maturity.

#kubernetes #on-premise #open source tools #kubernetes cluster