A Free Way to Learn the Ropes with Kubernetes
Tags: kubernetes, news
Published: 2020-03-17 16:33:57

Since we launched Platform9 Managed Kubernetes (PMK) three years ago, we learned a lot about real-world Kubernetes deployments. Large enterprise customers like Juniper have battle-tested PMK at scale running on hundreds of bare metal nodes across data centers. Many users have benefited from our SaaS management capabilities, including automated deployments, upgrades, security patching, and SLA management.

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/jiiyk99tz4dftw2fk8i9.jpg)

In the last 12 months, we had several successful Kubernetes deployments around the world, highlighting momentum in Kubernetes and validating our industry-leading SaaS Management model.

##Operating Kubernetes at scale is extremely challenging##
However, we also found that a vast majority of people and companies are struggling with the complexity of operating Kubernetes in production. Kubernetes is complex and notoriously difficult to manage, particularly in on-premises or multi-cloud environments. Day 2 Operations are incredibly challenging: how do you handle upgrades to your clusters when there’s a new version or a security patch? How do you do the monitoring? HA? Scaling? Compliance? And more.

The operational pain is compounded by the industry-wide talent scarcity and skills gap. Most companies are struggling to hire the much sought-after Kubernetes experts, and they lack advanced Kubernetes experience to ensure smooth operations at scale.

Delivering production-grade Kubernetes in a way that doesn’t make your existing staff run for the hills (or get left holding the bag...) is tough.

##Many companies are still learning the ropes with Kubernetes##
Furthermore, not everybody is ready to go into production right away. For many companies, Kubernetes is still new, and they are kicking tires to figure out why, if, and when they want to use it. Companies want the room to start small, learn, test, and then scale to production on their terms.

Therefore, we decided to make our enterprise Kubernetes product more accessible across the board no matter where the customer is on their Kubernetes journey. We wanted DevOps teams and developers everywhere to enjoy the freedom of using Kubernetes at their own pace and in any environment of their choice so they can innovate for the business without having to deal with the day-to-day complexities of running Kubernetes in production.

##New plans for PMK##
We are excited to announce the launch of two new PMK plans (“Freedom’ and ‘Growth’) that allow DevOps, ITOps, Platform Engineering, and cloud architects to

1. Sign up online and instantly create upstream open-source **Kubernetes clusters in under 5 minutes**

2. Deploy clusters in any environment ranging from developer laptops, on-premises VM’s or bare metal servers to edge infrastructure or public clouds

3. Eliminate the constraints of Kubernetes skills, long implementation times, or management of day-2 operational activities such as upgrades, security patching, or monitoring, etc.

4. Gain the flexibility to start small, learn, test, and scale to production on their terms and pace.

**[Sign-up now to deploy your free cluster] (http://bit.ly/39TwULv)**

**The Freedom plan** is great for anyone getting started with Kubernetes and allows users to instantly install Kubernetes clusters of up to **20 nodes (800 vCPU’s).**

**The Growth plan** starts under $500/month, including an option for month-to-month payments, and provides **99.9% SLA and 24×7 support for up to 50 nodes (2000 vCPU’s).**

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/62jm5aetx70o1v3xvplk.png)

##An extensive set of core features and support options unmatched anywhere##
Before we dive into the details, first an important distinction:

Those of us who want to leverage Kubernetes in the enterprise know that words like “managed” and “service” (or “as-a-service”) are often thrown around with enterprise Kubernetes solutions. But they describe VERY different levels – and philosophies – of “management,” and of “service.”

What we mean is a fully-managed Kubernetes service, where Platform9 does all of the heavy lifting and ongoing operations. So **you don’t have to deal with any of the operational complexity.** Don’t mistake ‘managed service’ to mean a lot of people on keyboards manually managing your environment. Platform9 delivers a public-cloud like service in on-premises, edge, and multi-cloud environments. This service is provided using a SaaS delivery model, developed with thousands of person-years of software automation engineering work. Moreover, the service is backed by our additional layer of Kubernetes certified experts and customer success teams who also monitor and remediate the environment.

Both the Freedom and Growth plans use the same battle-tested and proven enterprise edition of Platform9 Managed Kubernetes (PMK) and provide the following set of core capabilities:

 - A SaaS Management Plane that remotely monitors, optimizes and heals your clusters and underlying infrastructure, across all of your environments
 - Self-service, instant cluster creation (under 5 minutes) with native integrations across private and public clouds
 - 1-click, in-place cluster upgrades to the latest version of Kubernetes
 - Automatic security patches – when a new CVE is discovered and fixed, a patch is automatically applied to all clusters
 - Built-in monitoring and alerts to ensure cluster health, including etcd cluster quorum lost, etcd node down, etcd repair failure, infrastructure resource utilization, node storage issues, network connectivity between nodes, docker daemon down, and more
 - Managed Observability (Prometheus and more) is included by default. Users can configure these tools for their specific needs for each cluster (connect to a different persistent storage or data visualization tool, etc. Grafana dashboard is integrated by default.)
 - Centrally manage all clusters from a single pane of glass
 - Control access to resources with fine-grained Kubernetes RBAC management

And much, much more.

**For a more detailed list of capabilities and comparison of these plans, go [here>>>](http://bit.ly/2Ucv2qt).**

We believe these plans will make Kubernetes a no-brainer for DevOps, ITOps, and cloud platform teams in any company no matter how large or small, no matter where they are in their Kubernetes journey- providing everyone with a superior experience of the Kubernetes services on their infrastructure (on-prem, or in the cloud or at the edge)

##Making it easier to migrate your apps into Kubernetes: Partnership with HyScale##
Getting stable Kubernetes clusters deployed and operational is something that most DevOps and ITOps struggle with, but what about containerization your existing complex apps? This migration can be a long and complicated endeavor in and of itself, which can further be hampered by all the new Kubernetes concepts that developers need to learn. How can we simplify this process?

[Enter HyScale](https://www.hyscale.io/).

HyScale is an application delivery platform that abstracts the complexities of containers and Kubernetes so that your application teams can quickly deliver containers and IT teams get to drive-up Kubernetes adoption.

We have partnered with HyScale to help our customers accelerate Kubernetes adoption and get developers excited about containerization and moving their apps to Kubernetes. [Read this blog](https://www.hyscale.io/blog/platform9-kubernetes-solution-with-hyscale/) for more details on this partnership, including step-by-step instructions on how you can get your apps migrated over to PMK.

##Managing your container images in a private registry, for FREE: Partnership with JFrog##
If you have used or heard of Artifactory, then you know [JFrog](https://jfrog.com/). 

JFrog has recently introduced the [JFrog Container Registry](https://jfrog.com/container-registry/), which is the most comprehensive and advanced container registry in the market today, and it is available for free.

The need for a private registry to store and manage this software is vital whether you are producing containerized software or merely running it. A private registry can protect you from upstream changes, network failures, and generally from third-party sources you have no control over. If you are producing images, you need a private registry to version your software, track its dependencies, and allow for reproducible builds. This is where JFrog’s Container Registry (JCR) comes in. It’s easy to deploy JCR on top of PMK and get a free registry running on a free PMK cluster anywhere.

##So what are you waiting for? Give our “Freedom” plan a spin. It’s free forever, no credit card required. Really!##

You can get going with a single node Kubernetes on your laptop. Here are the step-by-step tutorials for deploying on your laptop:

1. [Deploy on Apple macOS with VirtualBox](http://bit.ly/2ISj5B5) 
2. [Deploy on Windows OS with Virtual Box](http://bit.ly/2TVqyFV)

Once you have deployed your cluster, here are more tutorials for you get started with container applications:

1. [Setup your NGINX Ingress Controller](http://bit.ly/2WjO54P)
2. [Get your first container up and running](http://bit.ly/38ZwlhM)
3. [Deploy a complex microservices app](http://bit.ly/38ZwlhM)

Not ready to sign up yet? Want to learn more about what you are getting for signing up? No worries. Check out this demo video from our co-founder, VP of product, and the brainchild behind these new PMK plans, Madhura Maskasky:

<p><a href="https://platform9.com/blog/announcing-new-platform9-managed-kubernetes-pmk-plans-that-start-at-zero-cost-and-scale-as-customers-grow/?wvideo=xc8iil087p"><img src="https://embedwistia-a.akamaihd.net/deliveries/29d8cea46d8259b2210e91c4665942df.jpg?image_play_button_size=2x&amp;image_crop_resized=960x538&amp;image_play_button=1&amp;image_play_button_color=54bbffe0" width="400" height="225" style="width: 400px; height: 225px;"></a></p><p><a href="https://platform9.com/blog/announcing-new-platform9-managed-kubernetes-pmk-plans-that-start-at-zero-cost-and-scale-as-customers-grow/?wvideo=xc8iil087p"></p>