Why Kubernetes matters for enterprise cloud strategy
Kubernetes is container orchestration software that automates deploying, scaling, and managing applications across cloud infrastructure. For enterprises running dozens or hundreds of services, it eliminates the manual work of keeping everything running and allocating resources efficiently.
We've been migrating enterprise clients to Kubernetes at Globalbit since 2019. The results are consistent: lower infrastructure costs, faster deployments, and fewer outages. Here's what we've learned.
The case for Kubernetes in enterprise environments
Auto-scaling that actually works
When we migrated a large Israeli e-commerce platform to Kubernetes, their resource utilization improved by 40%. During their busiest shopping period (Black Friday equivalent), the system scaled from 12 pods to 47 pods automatically, then scaled back down overnight. No manual intervention, no over-provisioning "just in case."
Before Kubernetes, they kept servers running at 30% capacity year-round to handle traffic spikes. That's money burning for no reason.
Multi-cloud without the headache
Kubernetes runs the same way on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. One of our financial services clients runs their primary workloads on Azure but keeps a failover on AWS. Same deployment manifests, same CI/CD pipeline. When their Azure region had a 4-hour incident last year, traffic shifted to AWS in under 90 seconds.
Vendor lock-in is a real concern for CTOs managing seven-figure cloud budgets. Kubernetes removes that problem.
Faster releases, fewer incidents
A financial institution we worked with was deploying once every two weeks before Kubernetes. After migration, they moved to daily deployments. Infrastructure costs dropped 30%. More importantly, their mean time to recovery (MTTR) went from 45 minutes to under 8 minutes, because Kubernetes automatically restarts failed containers and reroutes traffic.
Where Kubernetes gets complicated
Kubernetes is not simple to operate. The learning curve is steep, and misconfigured clusters are worse than no clusters at all. Common problems we see when rescuing failed Kubernetes implementations:
- Security misconfigurations — default settings leave clusters exposed. Network policies, RBAC, and pod security standards need to be configured from day one.
- Resource sprawl — teams spin up namespaces without limits, and cloud bills spike unexpectedly.
- Monitoring gaps — Kubernetes generates enormous amounts of telemetry data. Without proper observability tooling (Prometheus, Grafana, or a managed equivalent), problems go unnoticed until they become outages.
This is why most enterprises that succeed with Kubernetes work with a team that has done it before. The technology is powerful, but the implementation details matter more than the technology itself.
Frequently asked questions
Is Kubernetes worth the complexity for mid-size companies? It depends on your workload. If you're running fewer than 5 services with predictable traffic, managed container services (like AWS ECS or Azure Container Apps) might be simpler. Once you're past 10-15 services with variable load, Kubernetes starts paying for itself.
How long does a typical Kubernetes migration take? For a medium-complexity enterprise application (20-30 services), we typically complete migration in 3-4 months. That includes containerization, CI/CD pipeline setup, monitoring, and security hardening.
Can Kubernetes work with legacy applications? Yes, but with caveats. Stateless services migrate easily. Stateful applications (databases, message queues) need more careful planning. We usually keep databases on managed services and move application logic to Kubernetes.
If you're evaluating Kubernetes for your infrastructure, we're happy to share what's worked (and what hasn't) for organizations similar to yours. Get in touch.