In the new Kubernetes era, it’s no longer about the distro, but deploying, managing and innovating at scale without choosing between flexibility and control. After all, applications are the lifeblood of enterprises.  

The flexibility and control challenge in Kubernetes comes up quite a bit within organizations, because application developers want the ability to choose the latest technology for rapid innovations. On the other hand, ITOps needs the capability to enhance security and governance. Spectro Cloud Inc. handles the flexibility and control tradeoff using guardrails, according to Dave Cope (pictured), chief revenue officer and marketing officer of Spectro Cloud.

“Developers want choice, but ITOps want to be able to make sure that there are guard rails … so with some of today’s technologies like Spectro Cloud, you have the ability to get both,” Cope stated. “It becomes an insurmountable problem unless you can set those guardrails to sort out that balance between flexibility and control, let developers access the technologies, but again, manage it as a part of your normal processes.”

Cope spoke with theCUBE industry analysts Keith Townsend and Paul Gillin at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how Spectro Cloud is revamping the Kubernetes space by striking a balance between control and scalability. (* Disclosure below.)

Kubernetes and the edge join forces

By deploying a self-driving edge device running on Kubernetes, Cope believes Spectro Cloud helps solve the challenge of having dispersed endpoints worldwide.

“We announced our edge Kubernetes solution, and we allow the application engineers to develop their application,” he said. “Then you can design this declarative model, this cluster API, which determines which additional application services you need and the edge device. All the person has to do with the endpoint is plug in the power plug in the communications; it registers the edge device, automates the deployment of the full stack, and does the ongoing versioning and patch management.”

IT executives believe having both flexibility and control is cumbersome, according to Cope.

“We actually worked with Dimensional Research on an annual state of Kubernetes survey,” he said. “We found last summer that two out of three IT executives said you could not have both flexibility and control together. But, in fact, they want it … so it is an interesting balance.”

By merging edge computing and Kubernetes, Spectro Cloud enables large corporations like GE Healthcare to use minimal resources when automating provisioning, version management and patch management, according to Cope.

“We had GE Healthcare as one of our customers telling their story; they’re a market share leader in medical imaging equipment,” he said. “Here is a very large established company, a leader in their industry, working with people like Spectro Cloud, realizing that Kubernetes is an interesting technology.”

The Kubernetes narrative has changed from distribution to scalability and governance, according to Cope.

“The age of debating the distros is largely over … so right now, what’s happening is that it’s not about the distribution. It’s how do I deploy, manage and innovate at scale,” he pointed out. “I think there’s a desire to allow application developers to just focus on the application and have a Kubernetes-related technology that ensures that all infrastructure and related application services are just there to support them.”

Despite Kubernetes being the current dominant containerization and orchestration technology, Cope believes it has not been approachable to the masses.

“These very expensive and highly skilled resources sat in a dark corner focused on Kubernetes, but now that is trying to evolve to make it more accessible to the masses,” he explained. “Now it’s about how do I create these stacks and make them easy to deploy and manage at scale. So we’ve gone from sort of DIY developer-centric to how do I manage this at scale.”

Spectro Cloud brings the bare metal and Kubernetes worlds together, according to Cope.

“We’ve had bare metal as infrastructure that’s been developing, and then we’ve had orchestration technology’s developing, but they haven’t really come together very well lately,” he pointed out. “Spectro Cloud contributed to open source, a metal-as-a-service technology that finally brings these two worlds together.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe event. Neither Spectro Cloud Inc., the sponsor for this segment, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE