DEVOPSdigest

Kubernetes (K8s) has become the gold standard for orchestrating containerized environments, as it offers agility, scalability and resilience for enterprise Java applications. Yet, the very power of K8s can also be its greatest challenge, leading to a dramatic increase in Java developers' workload. Intricate and time-consuming configuration, the need for ongoing maintenance and the extensive expertise and highly specialized skills necessary for successful handling mean the orchestrator requires its own orchestrator(s). To thrive in this new normal, developers need a solution that doesn't just run on K8s but tame it.

Before microservices and containers, launching a new (monolithic) enterprise Java application was a custom project, with every API being written, reinvented and embedded directly into an application. By splitting a large monolithic application into much smaller individual pieces that can be independently written, modified, maintained and deployed, developers can reuse existing services instead of rewriting entire components. Each microservice is built around a specific business function and exposed via a standardized API, enabling other applications or services to consume functionality without duplicating code.

However, as microservices multiply, managing them manually becomes complex. For instance, each service may have different needs, e.g. when it comes to its scale-up, management and deployment. K8s, which harnesses itself the power of containerization, was designed to address the challenges of containers and microservices.

More precisely, it abstracts the environment so that the platform manages most operational burdens, in place of the application codebase. As such, it moves complexity out of enterprise Java applications (and microservices) into a powerful infrastructure layer. All the security, logging, redundancy and scaling features that developers had to build, maintain and secure become part of the K8s environment, rather than individual codebases.

By adopting K8s, Java teams can build simpler, cleaner, more lightweight and maintainable applications. They can also move faster, without sacrificing robustness or scalability, as developers can focus more on true business logic while reducing workload associated with boilerplate or operational repetition. Developers simply write to known APIs, K8s takes care of the rest by default.

The Realities Behind Kubernetes Adoption

The move to K8s presents clear advantages and, on paper, it looks straightforward. In practice, K8s shifts where the complexity lies (from applications to the environment) and reduces it, but it does not eliminate it completely. In effect, K8s requires extensive and expert configuration to effectively orchestrate all different components.

As such, many organizations find themselves grappling with a number of hurdles. Specifically, the challenges associated with setting up, maintaining and running K8s efficiently can contribute to soaring operational overhead, especially within teams with limited K8s competences. Even more, the risk of misconfigurations is high, potentially exposing applications to malfunctioning, cyber threats or missed compliance. Fixing any issue, then, further increases overhead while impacting productivity.

From One Pan Dishes to a Full Kitchen: Enter Kubernetes

In other words, when microservices and containers broke down the monolith into manageable pieces, K8s stepped in to orchestrate this new complexity. But orchestrating hundreds of moving parts is no small feat. To put this into perspective, let's imagine you're making dinner.

One-pot recipes (your monolith) sound great, but you have to get all the timings right: when to add each veg, the sauce, the proteins and carbs. Get them wrong and one part will end up being overcooked and the other not cooked enough. At the end, the whole meal is ruined.

To fix this, you decide to cook each ingredient separately (microservices). The sauce is being prepared in one pan, the veggies are being roasted in the oven, the pasta pot with strainer is being used to boil the orzo and the halloumi is in the frying pan. Now it's modular and easier to manage ... in theory.

But then you realize you need to handle multiple tasks simultaneously. Plus, everyone at the table wants different combinations. So, you ask your friend who loves cooking (Kubernetes) to manage it all. They know exactly what they are doing, so problem solved, right?

Except now you have to explain where everything is in your kitchen, how the induction hob works and figure out why your friend suddenly decided that the sauce wasn't good enough and needed to be redone. The complexity has just shifted from a burnt one-pan dish to a full-blown restaurant operation.

If K8s is so challenging, you may be asking: Why use it in the first place? The answer is simple: because its benefits are hard to match, as it solves problems Java developers have wrestled with for years. So it's important for teams to make K8s work for them, not the other way around.

Rethinking the Kubernetes Experience for Java Teams

This environment begs the question: how can Java development teams retain all the benefits of containers, microservices and K8s while minimizing the operational and cognitive overhead? Of course, getting past the steep learning curve is key, but how can you do it and what can you do in the meantime?

Emerging answers point towards increasing abstraction and automation through platform engineering approaches. These make the infrastructure and its management recede into the background, empowering development teams to focus on delivering business value.

However, to deliver intuitive self-service tooling that truly simplifies Kubernetes configuration for enterprise Java applications, platforms must strike a balance between being generic and being opinionated. Most K8s configurator and deployments platforms aim to streamline K8s orchestration, but their broad, application-agnostic design often means they require significant configuration themselves. Since they aren't tailored to specific use cases, such as the unique needs of Java developers and the tech stack they handle, they lack the built-in conventions and defaults that would otherwise reduce complexity and setup overhead.

Instead, a fully-managed, enterprise Java-centric platform can offer an automated, standardized solution for truly one-click deployment environments. Development teams can get the depth and nuance required for serious Java work, without requiring extensive manual adjustments.

Abstracting Complexity: What "Kubernetes Simplified" Looks Like

For enterprise Java teams modernizing legacy workloads or building new cloud-native applications, the emerging pattern is clear: platforms purpose-built for Java can help organizations get the full benefit of K8s without incurring its full operational cost. Rather than offering only generic, application-agnostic orchestration, these platforms embed Java-specific conventions, defaults and integrations, reducing the need for teams to hand-craft complex manifests or adapt generic tooling to fit their stack.

This Java-centric approach can streamline DevOps activities, minimize misconfigurations, and let developers focus on business logic rather than plumbing. When security, secrets management, and role-based access controls are integrated from the outset, and when monitoring and diagnostics come built in, teams can achieve consistent deployments and faster feedback loops without bolting on extra components.

The future of enterprise Java software is not about mastering every nuance of K8s but about leveraging tools that bring its power efficiently, securely and seamlessly into the development workflow. By choosing a solution that tames the complexity, teams are empowered to focus on delivering change rather than having to manage infrastructure. Ultimately, by adopting a unified platform that automates and standardizes deployments, teams and organization can save time and resources, familiarize experts with K8s technology and advance their applications.