Kubernetes is today the reference solution for deploying and managing containerized cloud native applications, whether in the cloud, on-premise, or in hybrid environments.
While the technology is mature and its adoption widespread, running it day to day remains complex, and many companies need reliable Kubernetes support to ensure the availability, security, and performance of their platforms.
In this article, we take stock of the challenges, the existing models, and the criteria for choosing quality Kubernetes (K8s) support.
We’ll also walk you through our different approach to 24/7 Kubernetes support at Enix!
The Challenges of Kubernetes Support for Businesses
These challenges concern not only Kubernetes itself, but also the entire cloud native ecosystem around it as well as the underlying infrastructure: networking, storage and databases, security, CI/CD, observability, and so on. Solid support must of course cover Kubernetes, but also bring expertise on these related technologies.
Operating a Kubernetes (K8s) platform smoothly over time can prove complex, with the following challenges:
High availability and resilience: guaranteeing that your applications remain accessible even if one of the cluster’s components, or a component connected to the cluster, fails;
Operational response capability: beyond design and Kubernetes expertise, the ability of engineers to properly investigate and quickly identify the source of a failure and implement the necessary fixes;
Security: applying patches, managing vulnerabilities (CVEs), upgrading versions without downtime;
Performance and costs: optimizing sizing and autoscaling, resource consumption, and monitoring to avoid waste while ensuring the cluster’s robustness and the performance of the applications running on it;
Business focus: freeing internal teams from infrastructure and operational tasks on the platforms so they can focus on the application and business layers.
The Different Kubernetes Support Models
As an open source technology, Kubernetes has a very active community (CNCF communities, meetups, Slack, GitHub, forums, etc.). These resources are valuable but generally insufficient without hands-on experience running Kubernetes in production. There are essentially two types of players capable of providing Kubernetes support.
Support From the Vendor or Cloud Provider
The major players offer their own support service for their distributions or their managed Kubernetes services:
- Kubernetes “distributions”: Red Hat OpenShift, Mirantis MKE, Siderolabs Omni (Talos), etc.;
- Managed services from cloud providers such as Google GKE, Azure AKS, AWS EKS, or from French players like OVHcloud MKS, Scaleway Kapsule, or Outscale OKS.
These support offerings are solid but limited to the scope of the Kubernetes solution itself, without accounting for the platform’s other components or the underlying infrastructure layers. Nor are they well suited to multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud Kubernetes support.
Moreover, this is most often “traditional” support via a ticketing system with several tiers of support activated progressively during an incident. It isn’t necessarily available in your language or around the clock (24/7).
That said, this type of Kubernetes assistance — whether included in the service or paid for, depending on the desired support tier — can be sufficient for some companies that already have solid in-house Kubernetes and ecosystem skills. It can, however, show its limits for more complex and critical platforms where support responsiveness is essential, including on-call coverage outside business hours.
Support From a Specialized Kubernetes Expert
In this case, it’s possible to rely on specialized Kubernetes expert providers focused on DevOps and cloud native, capable of delivering quality 24/7 Kubernetes support with a broader scope and stronger commitments. This potentially includes:
- A support scope broader than Kubernetes alone: the entire DevOps and cloud native stack, and potentially the infrastructure and cloud layers as well;
- 24/7 on-call support, in your own language;
- Higher SLAs on response and resolution times (GTR/GTI);
- The ability to manage production Kubernetes platforms while understanding the constraints and implications of the applications hosted on them;
- Potentially, a fuller managed-services offering rather than just support: fine-grained proactive monitoring, maintenance, functional and security updates, sizing and architecture optimization, and so on.
Kubernetes (K8s) Support by Enix: Premium and Multi-Environment
Our Premium (and Unconventional) Approach
At Enix, we take an unconventional, quality-driven approach to our Kubernetes support service. It differs from traditional support models because we guarantee access to top-tier expertise and a genuine close relationship:
Our unique expertise in containers and Kubernetes: it dates back to the early days of the technology (with Vanilla installations, “the hard way”), and is rounded out by our mastery of the cloud native ecosystem and DevOps approaches. One of our co-founders, Jérôme Petazzoni, is a co-creator of Docker container technology. Our teams are also made up entirely of senior engineers with 10 years of Kubernetes experience. And our Kubernetes training is highly rated both in France and internationally, with more than 3,500 people trained in Kubernetes since 2015;
Operational experience: We know the vast majority of Kubernetes solutions on the market (distributions, managed services, immutable OSes for K8s, etc.), and we’ve been operating platforms built on these solutions for over ten years. We run Kubernetes platforms across all types of environments (bare metal, VM, managed service), and we also offer our own custom-tailored managed service, “Enix Secured & Managed Kubernetes.” As of late 2025, we operate the Kubernetes platforms of around a hundred clients of all kinds, 24/7: Mistral AI, Institut Pasteur, TDF, Oodrive, Sellsy, Jalios, Optimi, and more.
Kubernetes support in your language: our engineers are all based in France, with our offices in central Paris;
Responsiveness and real-time support: our organization is built for responsiveness — we have no support tiers or complex escalation processes. Your teams are put directly in touch with our senior L3/L4 engineers, who can step in immediately in the event of a critical incident. Beyond standard ticketing, our teams are reachable live via instant messaging (e.g. Slack) for immediate follow-up;
24/7 on-call coverage: we’re recognized specialists in “haute couture,” round-the-clock operations — it’s our company’s core focus, operational management. We’re organized for proactive monitoring and continuous responsiveness to ensure immediate handling at any hour;
Kubernetes Support On-Premise, in the Cloud, or at Enix
We can provide support or full managed services for your Kubernetes platform, whether it’s deployed on-premise, on our own Enix infrastructure, in the cloud, or across complex hybrid and multi-cloud deployments.
For deployments in the cloud (public or private), we can provide Kubernetes (K8s) support on most cloud providers:
- Google GKE Kubernetes support
- Azure AKS Kubernetes support
- Amazon EKS Kubernetes support
- OVHcloud MKS K8s support
- Scaleway Kapsule K8s support
- Outscale OKS K8s support;
We also have particularly advanced experience providing Kubernetes support in on-premise environments, whether the Kubernetes clusters are deployed on bare metal or on a virtualization layer.
Our (Little) Extra Touches on Kubernetes!
Our role doesn’t stop at support and the operational management of platforms. We strongly encourage community-driven approaches and knowledge sharing, and we’re proud to be a major, recognized player in the Kubernetes ecosystem in France:
Enix co-organized the major Kubernetes Community Days France 2023 (KCD France) event, and now co-organizes its successor, Cloud Native Days France (CND France). The next edition will take place in Paris in February 2026, with more than 2,000 attendees expected.
We run an active tech community through our well-known “Enix live shows,” now followed by more than 1,500 participants.
We take part in numerous international conferences to share concrete production feedback: KubeCon EU, QCon San Francisco, OSS Summit, and others.
Above all, we’re not just Kubernetes users — we contribute back to open source by developing tools for Kubernetes used by the international community, such as Kube Image Keeper, X509 Exporter, or, more recently, Topomatik.
A Client Case: Mistral AI’s Kubernetes Platform
Since 2016, we’ve been operating critical Kubernetes platforms for organizations of all sizes across a wide range of industries. Among our recent references: Mistral AI, Institut Pasteur, TDF, Oodrive….
One example of our flagship client projects: since late 2023, we’ve been operating MistralAI’s multi-cloud Kubernetes platform 24/7, dedicated to its LLM inference (GenAI) services.
- AKS and GKE clusters deployed via Terraform/Terragrunt;
- Packaging with Helm and Flux (GitOps);
- Optimizations for AI workloads (Nvidia GPU, autoscaling, advanced storage);
- Cloud native monitoring and 24/7 managed services.
You can find out more about our collaboration with MistralAI.
👉 If you need Kubernetes (K8s) support or a partner for the co-management or full management of your Kubernetes and cloud native platforms, don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your needs!
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