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Managed K8s: simple management without infrastructure complexity

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Kubernetes has become the reference standard for developing and running modern container-based applications. It enables microservice deployment, ensures high availability, automatically scales resources, and allows applications to be updated without downtime (we've also created a white paper exploring its benefits and features in more depth). 

For developers, it's an extraordinary tool, and many organizations want to leverage Kubernetes to build applications faster and make them more resilient. The problem is that, in practice, maintaining a Kubernetes platform requires time, resources, and skilled personnel. Every cluster needs to be designed, monitored, updated, and kept secure. 

It's precisely this complexity that slows many companies down on their path to cloud-native adoption. This is where Tinext Cloud's Managed K8s service comes in. The goal is simple: to let development teams use Kubernetes without having to manage the underlying infrastructure themselves. 

The technology behind the service: our partner Clastix, with Kamaji and kMetal

To understand the value of a managed Kubernetes service, it helps to know, at least broadly, how the platform is built. 

A Kubernetes cluster is made up of two fundamental components: the control plane and the worker nodes. 

The control plane is the "brain" of the system. It's the component that coordinates the entire cluster: deciding where to run containers, monitoring application status, distributing workloads, and ensuring the infrastructure keeps running as expected. To guarantee high availability, a production cluster typically requires at least three control plane nodes, always an odd number, to ensure service continuity even in the event of a failure. This, however, comes with a significant resource cost, since every cluster needs machines dedicated exclusively to managing the platform. 

This is exactly where Kamaji comes in, the technology developed by our partner Clastix. ​Kamaji runs control plane components as pods.​, making it possible to manage many of them within the same infrastructure without having to replicate three new virtual machines every time. The result is a more efficient platform that's simpler to administer and faster to update. 

Alongside the control plane are the worker nodes, the servers that actually run the containers and applications. If the control plane makes the decisions, the worker nodes do the operational work. 

To manage them even more efficiently, Tinext Cloud uses​ k​Metal, the evolution of Clastix's architecture that extends Kamaji's benefits to worker nodes on bare-metal infrastructure as well. This makes it possible to administer the entire fleet of clusters from a single platform, simplifying management, improving scalability, and making the best possible use of available hardware resources.

Benefits of Kubernetes for the end customer

For the end customer, all of this is essentially invisible. 

What actually changes is the quality of the service: greater reliability, less complexity, faster provisioning times, and a platform ready to grow alongside the applications it supports. 

One of Kubernetes's key benefits is its ability to automatically adapt resources to workloads. Think of an e-commerce site during Black Friday, or a portal hosting a marketing campaign with thousands of users active at the same time within a specific window: with traditional infrastructure, all the necessary capacity would have to be planned for in advance. 

With the model adopted by Tinext Cloud, on the other hand, the cluster can automatically scale up available resources during traffic spikes and scale them back down once the load returns to normal. 

This approach makes it possible to optimize both costs and performance without manual intervention and without over-provisioning the infrastructure. 

A service built around business needs

Technology is only part of the value of this managed K8s solution. Tinext Cloud guides companies in designing the Kubernetes architecture best suited to their goals, offering training, operational support, and customized services that are hard to find in the standard offerings of large hyperscalers. 

Every project is built around the organization's real needs, choosing the most suitable level of management and leaving internal teams free to focus on software development. 

Developers can focus exclusively on their applications, while we take care of installation, updates, security, monitoring, and the platform's operational continuity. 

We are also the only partner in Switzerland to offer Clastix's kMetal solution, bringing cutting-edge Kubernetes infrastructure management technology to the Swiss market.