Kubernetes is touted as a computing cure-all, fixing up multicloud networking to data mobility. The open-source platform for orchestrating containers (a virtualized method for running distributed applications) may or may not be the panacea it’s hyped up to be. What is certain is that user-ready Kubernetes isn’t as easy as it sounds, so customers should shop carefully for a provider.

Enterprise users of Kubernetes and containers may not guess just how many moving parts are under the covers. There are a ton of tiny pieces that have to line up just so in order for them to work, according to Mark Shuttleworth (pictured), founder and chief executive officer of Canonical Ltd. He likens these technologies to carefully constructed “fictions.” 

“The fiction breaks if those pieces don’t line up,” Shuttleworth said. “So being … able to be consistent in all of those places is a ton of work to enable it not to matter for anybody upstairs.” 

Shuttleworth spoke with Stu Miniman (@stu), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and guest host and cloud economist Corey Quinn (@QuinnyPig) during the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event in Barcelona, Spain. They discussed the work of making containers and Kubernetes easy for developers and enterprises (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Covering up container complexity

The relative frailty of Kubernetes and Docker Inc. container managers became clear though some recent security compromises. “If you shave that yak, it gets to a very uncomfortable place of: What are we actually running as root all over our data centers with Docker and Docker Hub?” Shuttleworth said.

This is why customers increasingly desire performance assurance and guardrails for these technologies.

The whole tangle of pieces in containers and Kubernetes is becoming increasingly abstracted. “But to be confident in the abstractions, someone needs to do a lot of work,” Shuttleworth stated.

Canonical produces Ubuntu, an open-source Linux distribution based on the Debian operating system. It packages Kubernetes in the form of MicroK8s. Ubuntu claims that it can deploy Kubernetes in 60 seconds, and it works with all major clouds — that also offer Ubuntu worker nodes for their Kubernetes software as a service offerings. This means that a developer on a workstation with MicroK8s can take containers straight to any public cloud without friction, Shuttleworth explained.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event. (* Disclosure: Canonical Ltd. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Canonical nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE