Komodor Unifies Tools for Troubleshooting K8s
Komodor this week launched an open source project, dubbed Validkube, that promises to simplify Kubernetes troubleshooting.
Itiel Shwartz, Komodor CTO, says Validkube is an amalgamation of three existing projects that are now being made more accessible via a single interface. Those projects include a kubeval project to validate Kubernetes configuration files, a kubectl-neat project that cleans up Kubernetes YAML and JSON output to make it readable and, finally, a trivy project that scans for vulnerabilities in container images, file systems and Git repositories.
The goal is to make it simpler to implement DevSevOps best practices by eliminating the need to master different approaches for provisioning complementary toolsets, notes Shwartz.
As the adoption of Kubernetes increases in the enterprise, IT organizations will undoubtedly soon find themselves attempting to secure and troubleshoot fleets of Kubernetes clusters. Achieving that goal will require some degree of toolset standardization. In fact, a primary reason for slow Kubernetes adoption is the lack of integration among the disparate tools required to manage Kubernetes clusters and the stack of software that inevitably gets deployed on each of those clusters. In many cases, the stack of software running on Kubernetes is even more complex to manage than the cluster itself.
Kubernetes is, of course, simultaneously one of the most powerful and one of the most complex platforms to find mainstream adoption in the enterprise. IT organizations appreciate the ability to dynamically scale resources up and down, but many IT professionals are also intimated by the number of settings that need to be configured. In fact, it’s exceedingly easy to misconfigure a Kubernetes cluster, which has become an increasing source of concern for cybersecurity teams simply because of the sheer number of YAML files involved.
Most of the adoption of Kubernetes clusters has been driven by DevOps engineers that have programming expertise. However, as management platforms that provide a layer of abstraction become more available and make Kubernetes more accessible to the average IT administrator, the number of clusters deployed in production environments should steadily increase. The challenge is that the more Kubernetes clusters there are the more challenging Day 2 management challenges become, notes Shwartz. IT teams would be well-advised to take the time required to learn Kubernetes versus simply diving in and hoping for the best, he adds.
It’s not clear if 2022 will see Kubernetes crossing the proverbial enterprise IT chasm. The one thing that is certain is that Kubernetes clusters are being deployed everywhere from the cloud to the network edge. Once the number of Kubernetes clusters deployed reaches double digits, the chances that a centralized IT team will be required to assume responsibility for managing them only increases. Each of those IT teams will need to decide for themselves how they want to master what often winds up being a wall of YAML files.
