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documentation.suse.com / Layered Stack Deployment of K3s / Business aspect
Applies to SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.1, K3s 1.20.14

2 Business aspect

Agility is driving developers toward more cloud-native methodologies that focus on microservices architectures and streamlined workflows. Container technologies, like Kubernetes, embody this agile approach and help enable cloud-native transformation.

By unifying IT operations with Kubernetes, organizations realize key benefits like increased reliability, improved security and greater efficiencies with standardized automation. Therefore, Kubernetes infrastructure platforms are adopted by enterprises to deliver:

Cluster Operations

Improved Production and DevOps efficiencies with simplified cluster usage and robust operations

Security Policy & User Management

Consistent security policy enforcement plus advanced user management on any Kubernetes infrastructure

Access to Shared Tools & Services

A high level of reliability with easy, consistent access to a broad set of tools and services

2.1 Business problem

Kubernetes is the leading solution to address edge computing use cases in industry verticals such as manufacturing, transportation, power generation, healthcare, retail and banking. Typical edge systems that leverage Kubernetes to run complex workloads include energy meters, aircraft engines, gas & oil rigs, cruise ships, high-speed trains, retail scanners, wind turbine base stations, internet-connected cars, ATMs and much more.

For such target edge systems, which are often unattended, resource constrained and remote, orchestrating containerized workloads on Kubernetes deployments may seem overbearingly complex.

2.2 Business value

After two years of research and development in June 2020, K3s was donated to the CNCF. The donation is a testament of the commitment to the open source community and their mission to run Kubernetes everywhere.

Perfect for Edge

K3s is a highly available, certified Kubernetes distribution specifically designed for production workloads in unattended, resource-constrained, remote locations or inside IoT appliances.

Simplified & Secure

K3s is packaged as a tiny, single binary that reduces the dependencies and steps needed to install, run and auto-update a production Kubernetes cluster. For workloads, automated Manifest and Helm Chart managment deployments can be used. Also, multiple architectures, like x86_64, ARM64, and ARMv7, are supported with binaries and images available.

Given its extensive Kubernetes capabilities, K3s can also be a suitable choice for:

  • embedded platforms,

  • continuous integration and continuous deployment platforms,

  • branch locations or individual developer deployments, and

  • even core or cloud production instances

Tip
Tip

When K3s is imported and combined with SUSE Rancher, organizations are equipped with an easy, complete and reliable management solution for Kubernetes at the edge.

With this increased consistency of the deployed and managed Kubernetes infrastructure clusters, organizations benefit from an even higher level of the Cloud Native Computing model where each layer only relies upon the API and version of the adjacent layer, such as:

Compute Platform

The above software application and technology solutions are used with the platforms utilizing Ampere Computing that provides the industry’s first cloud native processors. As the term implies, these compute platforms are built to host many containers that must adhere to strict service level agreement (SLA) requirements, uniquely delivering the performance, scalability, security and power efficiency that is focused on today’s hyperscale cloud and edge computing workloads and applications. Providing the highest total performance and performance per watt of power, these Ampere Arm-based processors deliver a sustainable server solution for data center applications and enabling cloud service providers to meet the compute demands of the future with only a fraction of the power and real estate consumed today.

  • High Performance

    • Ampere processor products are single-threaded, run at consistently high frequencies, and are built with large low-latency private caches. This results in predictable high performance that elastically scales in a linear fashion for all the cloud native applications built in containers and managed by Kubernetes. The architecture also lends itself to high utilization and delivers consistent performance under maximum load conditions.

  • Linear Scalability

    • Ampere cloud native processors add more and often get more of the same performance you got last time. In addition to being the leader in power efficiency, Ampere’s high performance cloud native processors contain up to 128 cores, by far the most in the industry. These cloud native processors were architected and designed from the ground up to deliver on the metrics that matter for modern cloud native applications including a level of rack scalability that allows a rack density of over 3000 cores yielding the best container density in the industry for micro-service based services orchestrated by cloud native tools like Kubernetes.

  • Predictability

    • Ampere aligns both the hardware and software to provide constant and consistent performance even under heavy load conditions.

  • Sustainability

    • Cloud Service Providers’ relentless drive to achieve carbon neutrality requires power efficient servers. Ampere’s extremely power efficient cores that deliver exceptional performance. Legacy processors fall short of meeting modern cloud compute requirements. In fact data centers built with Ampere Altra Max processors at scale can be up to 60% more efficient from a power consumption perspective for equivalent application performance needs.