Recently, I printed my first e-book, The Kubernetes Operator Framework Book from Packt Publishing. Writing a e-book has at all times been a private purpose of mine, and so it appears becoming that I used to be capable of test that off by writing about one in every of my favourite subjects: Kubernetes.
My journey with Kubernetes started in 2016, as a software program engineer for Red Hat OpenShift. There, I had the chance to work with (and be taught from) a few of the smartest of us within the open supply neighborhood. I realized first-hand a few of the finest practices for Kubernetes growth as they had been utilized to broad enterprise use circumstances. And as I watched the event of OpenShift 4 take form, I acquired to witness the performance of Kubernetes Operators cranked to the max because the platform was constructed nearly solely across the Operator sample. There, Operators weren’t simply minor automation or deployment controllers; they had been actually powering a complete Kubernetes distribution. I simply occurred to be fortunate sufficient to have front-row seats to a transformative show of Operators in motion.
Unfortunately, I nonetheless meet individuals in the neighborhood who’re confused about Operators, how they work, and the advantages they will convey to cloud builders and clients. It appears that Operators are a subject about which many are curious, however few have the sources to really spend money on exploring.
That’s why I needed to write down this e-book: to supply a high-level introductory overview of Operators and the breadth of potentialities that their use gives, in order that extra individuals can be taught and profit from working them of their clusters. I felt that my expertise gave me a novel perspective on Operator growth and use circumstances such that I might clarify them by a singular narrative.
That narrative builds a storyline for The Kubernetes Operator Framework Book that provides readers a holistic, big-picture information by the event lifecycle of an Operator. The e-book begins by introducing the basic subjects of Operators damaged into three pillars: the Operator SDK, OLM, and OperatorHub. These pillars respectively symbolize the three most important phases of an Operator’s lifecycle: coding, deployment, and distribution.
Following the introduction, the e-book goes on to discover a few of the technical capabilities of Operators and identifies a pattern use case for a fundamental Operator, which serves as the one instance threaded all through the remainder of the e-book. That instance strings collectively the completely different pillars of the Operator Framework right into a unified tutorial for creating, working, and publishing an Operator (written in Go). Along the way in which, this contains subjects like designing CRDs, utilizing the Operator SDK instruments, and implementing further performance like metrics reporting with Prometheus so as to add observability insights to your Operator. Finally, Operator builders’ roles and obligations for ongoing upkeep are explored, equivalent to when and the right way to launch new variations and hold your dependencies in sync with the broader Kubernetes ecosystem of initiatives. All of those subjects are then summarized with a number of case research of third-party Operators, that are clinically dissected to reveal the ideas realized by the e-book’s tutorial in a real-world software.
The purpose of the e-book is to not present all of the solutions for constructing an Operator, however as an alternative to impress concepts about how Operators can finest serve you and your customers. By framing widespread software program growth ideas (equivalent to understanding the precise wants of your customers and tackling challenges equivalent to deprecation) by the lens of Operator growth, The Kubernetes Operator Framework Book reads in a different way than many textbooks which give attention to deep technical particulars and superior subjects. It is a conversational introduction for the reader who’s accustomed to Kubernetes, has heard of Operators, and is curious to be taught what sort of impression Operator growth can have for his or her group.
Researching and penning this e-book was an extremely rewarding expertise that may not have been potential with out the numerous mentors within the Kubernetes neighborhood who took the time to show me about this excellent expertise. The Kubernetes Operator Framework Book is my try at paying that ahead, and hopefully passing on a few of what I’ve realized to all the different keen learners who make this neighborhood so nice. I hope you get pleasure from studying it as a lot as I loved writing it.
