Bridging VMs and Containers on Kubernetes
As the cloud native landscape continues to evolve, a key question is emerging: can Kubernetes serve as a unified platform for both virtual machines (VMs) and containers? This move reflects broader industry trends towards consolidation and efficiency, but it’s not without its challenges. At the heart of this discussion is the ability to manage diverse workloads on a single platform, streamlining operations and reducing costs. The idea of running VMs and containers on the same platform is enticing, but it requires a fundamental shift in skills, expectations, and migration strategies. VM operators, accustomed to working with VMware, Hyper-V, or Nutanix, must adapt to Kubernetes’ ephemeral pods, policy-driven networking, and abstracted storage. This skills gap is being addressed by open source projects like KubeVirt, which extends Kubernetes to manage VMs in a familiar way, and Red Hat’s OpenShift Virtualization, which provides a standalone license for hosting VMs on Kubernetes. ...