91 lines
4.3 KiB
Markdown
91 lines
4.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Introducing kx: Kubernetes for Everyone"
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authors: ["levi-blackstone"]
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tags: ["Kubernetes"]
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meta_desc: "The Kubernetes Extensions (kx) library for Pulumi is designed to simplify the declaration of Kubernetes resources, and make the API easier to use."
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date: "2019-11-14"
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meta_image: feature.png
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---
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Kubernetes provides a rich, standards-based API that works across cloud and on-premise
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infrastructure. However, many of the API fields are deeply nested and require users
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to specify the same values redundantly across different resources. While this
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explicit specification is necessary for Kubernetes to operate, this often leads users to
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copy-paste existing code to manage the boilerplate.
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Today, as part of our [Crosswalk for Kubernetes announcement][crosswalk-announce-blog],
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we’re introducing the [Kubernetes Extensions (kx) library][kx-repo] for Pulumi. kx is
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designed to simplify the declaration of Kubernetes resources, and make the API easier for
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everyone to use.
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## Kubernetes YAML: The cloud assembly language
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With great power comes great complexity. The sheer number of Kubernetes configuration
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options can be overwhelming to users. YAML was not designed for programming, yet
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Kubernetes users often joke about being “YAML architects.”
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Kubernetes YAML has been compared to an assembly language. We find this analogy to
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be particularly apt: it gives users complete control over the system, although it is
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closely tied to low-level implementation details.
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Most Kubernetes applications require users to define several different resource
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types, and then manually tie them together with text string references. The API
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for each of these resource types is complex and deeply nested, so users often
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rely on copy-pasted examples and frequent examination of the API spec. Wouldn't
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it be nice if there was a way to go above these low-level implementation details,
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and get back to thinking about your application?
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The advent of high level programming languages completely changed the face of
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computing. Rather than being closely tied to the details of the underlying
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hardware, programmers could now focus on higher level concerns, like solving
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business problems.
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## Raising the Bar
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kx mirrors the advantages of high-level programming languages, abstracting away
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the low-level details so that you can focus on more important things!
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kx is designed to reduce complexity, with the ability to drop down to the raw API
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when necessary. This design provides a simple interface for the majority of cases,
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while still providing access to the full set of tools required for production apps.
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Two primary goals for kx are terse resource declarations, and the ability to compose
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resources effortlessly as you build out applications on Kubernetes.
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To illustrate this point, let’s check out a representative example of a real Kubernetes
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application, including a ConfigMap, Secret, Deployment, and Service.
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| Using kx | Equivalent YAML |
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| :-------------------: | :-------------------------------: |
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|  |  |
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> This code is available [here](https://gist.github.com/lblackstone/ae56b7a5c58986b51a2e7f3e595b6a56)
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Needless to say, it requires significantly more effort to understand and maintain the
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YAML version. Even including comments, the kx version is 50% shorter by only including
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information that is relevant to the application.
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kx is [available today][kx-repo] in developer preview. We invite you to try it out and
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let us know what you think!
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## Learn more
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If you'd like to learn about Pulumi and how to manage your
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infrastructure and Kubernetes through code,
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[click here to get started today](/docs/get-started/). Pulumi is open
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source and free to use.
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As always, you can check out our code on
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[GitHub](https://github.com/pulumi), follow us on
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[Twitter](https://twitter.com/pulumicorp), subscribe to our
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[YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Dhyn4Ev52YSbcpfnfP0Mw), or
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join our [Community Slack](https://slack.pulumi.com/) channel if you have
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any questions, need support, or just want to say hello.
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<!-- markdownlint-disable url -->
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[crosswalk-announce-blog]: /blog/crosswalk-kubernetes/
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[kx-repo]: https://github.com/pulumi/pulumi-kubernetesx
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<!-- markdownlint-enable url -->
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