Vodafone: Kubernetes consulting across cloud and on-premise

Engineering support for a large Kubernetes estate

Vodafone’s engagement with CloudHero concerned large Kubernetes clusters across public-cloud and on-premise environments. The scope combined advice on the platform with support for the infrastructure on which applications ran.

That context matters. A Kubernetes estate spanning different environments brings together cluster behaviour, network configuration, delivery tooling and application operations. Engineering decisions need to account for the systems around the cluster as well as Kubernetes itself.

A platform that extends beyond the cluster

The engagement’s technology stack included AWS and Kubernetes, with Istio for service networking. Argo, GitLab and Jenkins formed part of the delivery toolset; Terraform and Ansible were the infrastructure and configuration tools.

Elasticsearch, Fluent, Prometheus and Grafana were also part of the stack. Logs and metrics provide different views of a running platform: what an application reported, what resources it used and how that behaviour changed over time.

CloudHero’s role was to bring Kubernetes consulting and support to this wider operating environment. The work covered a real enterprise estate across cloud and datacenter boundaries.

Specialist support within an enterprise environment

The value of the engagement was access to engineers working across the Kubernetes platform and its surrounding tools. Vodafone could draw on CloudHero for advice and support for its large clusters.

This case illustrates the kind of environment CloudHero supports: existing enterprise infrastructure, multiple deployment locations and an established engineering toolchain. Teams evaluating a similar engagement can start with the parts of their platform that need deeper review or additional operational support.

Technologies in the engagement

AWS, Kubernetes, Istio, Argo, GitLab, Terraform, Ansible, Jenkins, Elasticsearch, Fluent, Prometheus and Grafana.