DoK Talks #96- Persistent Disk or StatefulSet? The right way and the wrong way to make apps persist state inside a K8s cluster // Neil Cresswell

https://go.dok.community/slack
https://dok.community/

ABSTRACT OF THE TALK

There is confusion amongst Kubernetes users as to when you should make a Deployment with a PVC and when you should use a StatefulSet with a PVC. There is also a general lack of understanding when it comes to disk access policies, what RWO/RWX mean and what they allow you to do. These concepts are complicated and require a deep level of understanding in order to avoid users making bad decisions that they come to regret later.

In this talk we will explore when you should use each type and what things you need to think about before making a decision. We'll also explore in detail how to safely deploy a multi-replica application with persistence using Portainer.

As part of the talk we will explore disk access policy, understand what RWO really is and how RWX disk access changes the equation in regards to persistence.

TAKE-AWAYS

From this talk delegates will learn the difference between persistent disk and StatefulSet. They will learn when to use each (and when not to) and what are the pitfalls they should be aware of when deploying multi replica apps. They will also learn what is disk access policy, what is RWO and how RWX disk access changes the equation in regards to persistence

BIO

Neil is the CEO and Co-Founder of Portainer.io, based in Auckland New Zealand.

Neil is a career consultant, having spent 25 years in the roles of systems engineering, IT consulting, and more recently IT management. Neil started his career with 12 years at IBM as his foundation, where he had a leading role in Server, Storage, and Virtualisation systems engineering.

Neil moved from IBM into self-employment with two business partners, who together created one of NZ’s (and later ASEANs) leading VMware consulting practices, ViFX. During this time, Neil was based in Singapore, and was responsible for the design and deployment of the largest and most complex VMware deployments in Asia Pacific. This experience saw Neil consulting to CIOs, CISO’s and CTO’s all over the region, picking up a vast array of intelligence on what these senior IT leaders expect from a product before it can obtain widespread adoption in their organisations.

Neil then moved into a CEO role at a start-up Cloud Service Provider, whereby he grew that business from nothing to $8M ARR in just 2 years.

Neil’s exposure to Docker technologies came 4 years ago, when at the helm of the Cloud Service Provider, he wanted to bring a “Containers as a Service” offering to market (well before many of the hyper-scales had such offerings). Neil attempted to find self-service portals that could be deployed by the service provider as a way to help his customers consume the service, but there were none available, so Neil had Portainer built.

Portainer has now grown into an entity of its own right, and using Neil’s knowledge of the CIO’s requirements, knowledge of the technology, and knowledge of infrastructure management, Neil has crafted Portainer into a strong contender in the Container management space.

Neil now runs the Portainer.io business, and is responsible for the overall product strategy and the team entrusted to deliver on that strategy.