By enabling organizations to deploy their applications and services in a fast, scalable, and resilient way, Kubernetes (K8s) has become central to infrastructure management. However, managing clusters in production remains a significant challenge and requires sharp technical expertise.
This article guides you through the essential criteria for selecting a Kubernetes provider capable of effectively supporting your company on its Kubernetes projects. It also presents the specifics and strengths we believe Enix brings to help you move forward with peace of mind.
Why Use a Kubernetes Provider?
A Powerful but Demanding Technology
Kubernetes simplifies the deployment and management of containerized applications. However, it brings about a substantial shift in how infrastructures and applications are designed, deployed, and operated, impacting developers and DevOps teams (containerization, observability, packaging, CI/CD) as well as SREs/sysadmins/ops in charge of maintaining and operating K8s clusters.
Between scalability, failure handling, performance optimization, and security, a poorly configured K8s infrastructure can quickly become the source of serious operational issues, or even a financial pit (a poorly configured cloud resource auto-scaling setup, for instance!).
Using a specialized K8s provider who knows the best practices helps minimize the risks associated with a Kubernetes migration, maximize performance, and optimize costs, all while securing the future of your IT infrastructure. It also generally helps save time during this transition, while potentially upskilling your technical teams along the way. Some K8s providers, like Enix, also handle the operational management of platforms or remain available as expert K8s support behind your own operations teams.
Key Criteria for Choosing the Right Kubernetes Provider
Technical Expertise and Certifications
A reliable provider must demonstrate solid expertise and experience in Kubernetes and container orchestration, but also more broadly in cloud infrastructure management and DevOps. Some providers are genuinely specialized in these K8s and Cloud Native technologies, while others are more generalist, having taken up Kubernetes more recently and generally having less expertise.
It is worth checking that the teams hold recognized Kubernetes certifications such as the CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator), the CKAD (Certified Kubernetes Application Developer), or the CKS (Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist). The fact that a provider is cloud-native specialized and capable of offering quality Kubernetes training is also a sign of likely high-quality support.
Production Experience and 24/7 Support
Make sure the provider actually manages clusters in production and isn’t only in charge of designing and building platforms, with in particular expertise on critical workloads and high availability. If your provider is responsible for running Kubernetes platforms, they will likely have an in-depth understanding of operational requirements and best practices.
A well-designed production Kubernetes cluster is highly resilient, but it still requires constant monitoring, since all your services will depend directly on this container orchestration layer. It is essential that your teams be thoroughly trained in Kubernetes, or that you rely on your Kubernetes provider to handle the Run. Responsive, available 24/7 support with advanced monitoring is then essential to avoid service interruptions or performance issues in production.
Cloud Native and Open Source Approach
Kubernetes is not an isolated technology; it fits into a whole complex Cloud Native ecosystem. A good K8s provider must be familiar with these open, interoperable cloud-native technologies:
- Open source monitoring stack (Prometheus, Thanos, Grafana, Loki)
- GitOps and CI/CD (ArgoCD, Flux, Tekton, Terraform)
- Registry (Harbor), application packaging (Helm, Kustomize)
- Network integration (Cilium, CNI, Flannel)
- Storage and database integration (CubeFS, Longhorn, Rook, OpenEBS, Min.io)
- Advanced security (OPA, Kyverno, Falco, Keycloak, Pod Security Standards) …
We’ve illustrated our approach and the cloud-native stack we manage at Enix in a fun way.
Your Kubernetes provider’s approach must be agile and tailored to your environment: on-premise, private cloud, public cloud, multi-cloud, or hybrid. There is no such thing as a universally good architecture, only an architecture suited to your needs (functionality and performance, cost, hosted applications and associated load/traffic profiles, expected level of automation, sovereignty requirements, disaster recovery/business continuity needs, etc.).
Feedback and Client References
Before making your choice, check the considered provider’s field experience and look into its client references:
- What is its reputation within the Kubernetes and Cloud Native ecosystem?
- Has it already supported organizations or companies in your industry, and how? Don’t hesitate to ask upfront for the contact details of its clients’ representatives, so you can get concrete feedback on the support they received;
- Does it offer case studies or testimonials from well-known, relevant clients?
Why Choose Enix as Your Kubernetes Provider?
A Recognized Expertise in Kubernetes
Enix is one of the leading Kubernetes experts and Cloud Native experts in France, enjoying strong recognition within the French tech ecosystem:
- We have been implementing Kubernetes platforms since 2016, from the very origins of the technology, back when no proven K8s solution existed yet (Vanilla implementation, “The Hard Way”). Today, depending on the existing setup and desired strategy, we deploy and operate K8s platforms with nearly every available solution: managed K8s services from the major French and GAFAM public clouds; K8s solutions suited to private cloud or on-premise environments such as Red Hat OpenShift, SUSE Rancher, Mirantis MKE; or our own highly secure Secured and Managed Kubernetes (SMK) service based on Talos…
- Since 2016, we have offered the most recognized Kubernetes training in France. It is taught by Jérôme Petazzoni, one of the co-founders of Enix and also one of the creators of Docker container technology. We have already trained more than 3,000 engineers in Docker and Kubernetes, both in France and internationally;
- We are co-organizers of KCD France, the leading Kubernetes and Cloud Native event in France;
- We have delivered numerous technical talks praised by the community at specialized conferences, including international ones such as Kubecon Europe 2024, for example on the complex topic of operating SQL databases deployed within Kubernetes clusters;
- We regularly share our Kubernetes expertise during our online meetups, the well-known Enix Live Shows. They are followed by a community of more than 1,500 people, and our events regularly draw 250 simultaneous attendees;
- We are strong open source contributors to the Kubernetes ecosystem, developing and sharing our own Kubernetes tools. They are widely used around the world, for example X509 exporter and Kube-image-keeper, each with 500-700 stars on GitHub;
Extensive Experience Operating Kubernetes and Running 24/7
Clients of All Sizes and Industries for 10 Years
Our clients are organizations of all sizes and industries. What they have in common is complex infrastructure to manage and a desire to rely on an expert Cloud Native partner for the operational management of their various components and platforms. Often, they also have custom needs and a substantial existing setup that needs to evolve.
Among our clients, we count for example Institut Pasteur, Oodrive, Ulule, and Mistral AI, the French AI champion we have supported since its early days in 2023 (design, build, and 24/7 operational management of their multi-cloud K8s LLM inference platform).
For most of them, we manage infrastructure components in addition to Kubernetes, such as their underlying virtualization/cloud layer where relevant, storage, databases, networking, middleware (SIEM, IAM, queuing, caching, etc.), and more. And we do this across every type of environment and cloud partner: on-premise, Enix hosting (France), dedicated private cloud or public cloud, sometimes hybrid and multi-cloud.
Our Experience in Operational Management
Beyond our expertise, we are specialists in managed hosting and 24/7 Run operations. You can find our vision of IT platform management and what sets us apart in our article on our vision of cloud managed services.
Here are a few of the main points:
- Our positioning is premium: we only employ senior experts with more than 10 years of expertise and production experience;
- We are involved from BUILD to RUN: we are staunch advocates of “prevention rather than cure”, demanding during the design or takeover phases of IT platforms to ensure an optimal Run;
- Increasingly rare in the cloud era, which tends to hide complexity, as a hosting provider (our core business since 2009) we have in-house cross-cutting expertise across infrastructure layers, including the low-level layers beneath Kubernetes. This ensures a solid understanding of complex infrastructure issues and, ultimately, the proper operation of platforms;
- Our modern monitoring, metrics, and alerting platform is at the heart of our managed services and Kubernetes support offering. It has been enriched over the years, for 15 years now, through a process of continuous improvement, to bring us as close as possible to operational excellence;
- We offer direct, premium level-3 support. You are in direct contact with our senior engineers, who are able to intervene on your infrastructure, with no complex escalation matrix;
- We are highly responsive and offer real closeness by setting up a dedicated Slack channel together. We then act as your outsourced, expert OPS team.
Conclusion
Choosing your Kubernetes provider to support you in your Kubernetes and cloud-native migration is a strategic decision that can impact the performance, security, and availability of your infrastructure and applications.
To ensure effective support, favor a K8s specialist provider who masters best practices, security, and cost optimization, and above all has genuine operational experience.
At Enix, for nearly 10 years we have put our Kubernetes expertise at the service of organizations to simplify their Kubernetes management and guarantee a reliable, high-performing Run. Feel free to contact us to discuss your project! 🚀
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