Kubernetes, the standard for container orchestration

We accompany our customers from the concept through to the implementation of their Kubernetes project. Within our project with 1&1 Mail & Media, for example, we started with an architecture workshop to define the goals, and used that as the basis to develop a server architecture that has since grown to over 800 servers and gradually replaced the huge existing architecture of around 17,000 servers.

We focus fully on the aims and needs of our customers. That could mean a turnkey platform that the company works on, or a solution with services on Kubernetes. We provide advice and are able to develop solutions that work across teams. This is proven by best practices from more than five years of project experience.

Whether prepared in advance by our customer or co-developed by us, we implement infrastructure in a fully automated way as the epitome of a ready-for-production solution – including monitoring, logging and all the necessary features.

We rely on the Infrastructure as Code paradigm to implement Kubernetes infrastructures. Infrastructure services such as storage space, network or computing services can be described as code and thus assembled or disassembled in a fully automated way.
This allows our customers to access a fully automated infrastructure that drastically reduces the time to market of the desired product and is dynamically scalable at the same time.

In order to deliver a running version of the product as quickly as possible, we rely on continuous integration and continuous deployment. By automating tests, developers have more time to integrate new functions and work creatively on the project.

The automation of deployments ensures that the infrastructure is always up to date and that features that have already been programmed can be integrated at the touch of a button, rather than gathering dust in a queue.

When it comes to development, we rely on support from a developer’s perspective. When developing in Kubernetes, we can make use of cloud-native applications. They stand out because they are lightweight containers that can be scaled efficiently and performantly.

If the services provided by Kubernetes are not sufficient in certain areas, we turn to service meshes to complement them in an intelligent and sensible way. We have experience in integrating database operators and using message brokers, such as the IoT MQTT broker from our technology partner Hive MQ.

Kubernetes is constantly evolving. With that in mind, for reasons of security it is important to be part of these developments and to stay up to date. For this purpose, we rely on static code analysis, among other things, to harden the Kubernetes clusters. For existing installations, we can also carry out security reviews to prevent external influences on your system.

Since Kubernetes was established, our developers have been actively contributing to the open-source project. During this time, our company has created tools for the Kubernetes cosmos, such as illuminatio – a Kubernetes Network Policy Validator.

In addition, we actively use many tools from the open-source sector in our projects, evaluate them and thus have the experience and know-how required to find the right services for a given project.
We not only extend the functionality of Kubernetes clusters, but also offer advice in the selection of suitable network tools and IT stacks.

If problems with the Kubernetes set-up occur, help not only needs to be provided quickly, but it also needs to be targeted and offer the required expertise. In addition to our own projects, our experts also evaluate existing installations and initiate appropriate measures or recommend action. If required, we also provide assistance with the implementation.