Kubernetes and Further Improvements to Our Web Project Deployments

IT Project
Written By Brandi Bleak
 

Status

Proof of Concept phase

Audience

FSCJ Web Developers, both within and outside of IT

About This Project

This project will work to modernize our web architecture further. Currently, we have an automated build process, and then some software to handle deploying those artifacts to web servers. Those web servers are shared between applications, however, which can pose some configuration and security challenges. This project aims to alleviate these challenges, while also providing developers with a more production-like environment they can use on their local workstations when testing changes. 

For the configuration and security challenges, each application will be executed in a container that isolates it from the other applications running on the system. This allows each application to have any arbitrary dependencies without impacting what other applications might use. Additionally, if there is a security breach in one application, the attacker would need to break out of that container in order to set up any persistent means of further access. 

Additionally, developers will be able to run the current version of their applications/services with a configuration much closer to that of production, since the web applications/services run as containers. This will require some additional configuration for each developer to utilize, but it should be very useful when trying to track down what is going on with a particular build. 

Lastly, utilizing Kubernetes allows for a relatively simple automated configuration of load balancing, plus it allows applications to scale out horizontally as needed based upon observed load. 

Timeline

  • Fall Term 2023 – Kubernetes cluster configured with network/firewall access 

  • Fall Term 2023 – Demonstrate the build and deployment of a web application/service to Kubernetes. This will include the automatic configuration of load balancing. 

  • Spring/Summer Term 2023 – Begin transitioning projects to Kubernetes Deployments 

Support

Standard support channels 

Brandi Bleak http://www.BrandiAngel.com
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