The Black Hole That Is the Kubernetes Network

There’s been a tension in physics over the last century or so between two theories. Both have proven valuable for predicting the behavior of the universe, as well as for advancing technological engineering, but they seem to make completely incompatible claims about the nature of reality. I’m referring, of course, to the general theory of relativity and quantum theory. Ordinarily, these two theories tackle very different questions about the universe — one at the largest scale and the other at the smallest — but both theories come together in the study of black holes, points of space from which no information can escape. There’s a tension in the air at many enterprise organizations today as well between two heuristics for enterprise networking, both of which have produced excellent results for software companies for years. That tension revolves around Kubernetes. As a manager of cloud security and network infrastructure for a large regional bank put it, “Kubernetes ends up being this black hole of networking.” The analogy is apt. Like black holes, Kubernetes abstracts away much of the information traditionally used to understand and control networks. Like quantum theory, Kubernetes offers a new way to think about your network, but Continue reading