DevOps & SRE notes

Sven Eliasson benchmarks Hetzner’s Kubernetes storage classes to evaluate their suitability for database workloads. This report highlights the significant performance differences between instance-attached NVMe storage and cloud volumes, offering practical insights for infrastructure planning.

https://sveneliasson.de/benchmarking-hetzners-storage-classes-for-database-workloads-on-kubernetes

pod that scales down to zero

https://github.com/ctrox/zeropod

Automate Kubernetes Configuration Editing

https://github.com/kptdev/kpt

Dropbox has built a flexible messaging system model to support its evolving async platform. This blogpost explores how the new architecture enhances decoupling and scalability across their infrastructure services.

https://dropbox.tech/infrastructure/infrastructure-messaging-system-model-async-platform-evolution

Migrating from MetalLB to Cilium streamlines Kubernetes networking by consolidating load balancer, IP address management, and network advertisement features into a single tool. This article details how Cilium—starting with version 1.13—natively supports LoadBalancer IP management, BGP (Layer 3) announcements, and Layer 2 (ARP) announcements, eliminating the need for MetalLB in most self-managed clusters. Through practical YAML examples, it demonstrates configuring Cilium IP pools, service selectors, specific IP assignments, and both IPv4 and IPv6 support, as well as advertising service IPs to the network using BGP or ARP, offering a more integrated and simplified approach to Kubernetes networking.

https://isovalent.com/blog/post/migrating-from-metallb-to-cilium/

Kubernetes, Emacs, done!

https://github.com/eshelyaron/kubed

A schema and validator for YAML.

https://github.com/23andMe/Yamale

This newsletter explains the challenges of the "hot shard" problem—when a disproportionate amount of traffic targets a single shard, causing resource saturation and degraded performance. The blogpost outlines practical strategies to address this, such as vertical scaling, adding read replicas or caches, distributing hot keys across more shards, choosing better sharding keys and algorithms, implementing load balancing and queueing, controlling traffic with backpressure, and monitoring the cluster for early detection of issues.

https://newsletter.scalablethread.com/p/how-to-handle-hot-shard-problem

Figma’s migration onto Kubernetes is a compelling case study in how a high-growth company can modernize its infrastructure for scalability, reliability, and developer productivity. This article recounts Figma’s decision to move from AWS ECS to Kubernetes (EKS), the challenges they faced with ECS—such as lack of support for StatefulSets, Helm charts, and advanced autoscaling—and the benefits they unlocked by embracing the broader CNCF ecosystem and Kubernetes’ popularity within the industry.

https://www.figma.com/blog/migrating-onto-kubernetes/

AKS Karpenter Provider

https://github.com/Azure/karpenter-provider-azure

Easy and Repeatable Kubernetes Development

https://github.com/GoogleContainerTools/skaffold

Understanding logical replication in PostgreSQL is crucial for anyone managing data across multiple Postgres instances. This blogpost from EnterpriseDB introduces the basics of logical replication, explaining how it enables selective data replication—such as inserts, updates, and deletes—between databases, even across different Postgres versions, and outlines the practical steps to set up publications and subscriptions for real-time data synchronization.

https://www.enterprisedb.com/blog/logical-replication-postgres-basics

Efficient, disruption-free application updates are essential for modern cloud-native operations. This article on Semaphore explains how Kubernetes’ rolling update deployment strategy enables teams to maintain service continuity while incrementally rolling out new versions.

https://semaphore.io/blog/kubernetes-rolling-update-deployment

Application lifecycle orchestration

https://github.com/akuity/kargo

TerraConstructs is a library of classes and interfaces inspired by AWS CDK, but designed to leverage the power and flexibility of Terraform.

https://github.com/TerraConstructs/base

This analysis explores how DeepSeek has reimagined the Transformer architecture to achieve greater efficiency and performance in large language models. The piece highlights innovations like Multi-Head Latent Attention and advanced Mixture-of-Experts routing that set DeepSeek apart from conventional approaches.

https://epoch.ai/gradient-updates/how-has-deepseek-improved-the-transformer-architecture

Railway’s latest narrative details their transition from relying on Google Cloud Platform to building their own physical infrastructure, highlighting the challenges and lessons learned in constructing a custom data center cage. This entry offers a behind-the-scenes look at selecting colocation options, managing power and cooling, and orchestrating the intricate cabling and network setup required for a resilient, high-performance platform.

https://blog.railway.com/p/data-center-build-part-one

GitHub's Online Schema-migration Tool for MySQL

https://github.com/github/gh-ost

Provides a general service to support image acceleration based on kinds of accelerator like Nydus and eStargz etc.

https://github.com/goharbor/acceleration-service

Kubernetes network policies are essential for controlling how traffic flows between pods, namespaces, and external endpoints in your cluster, helping you enforce security and compliance requirements. This guide by Scott Rigby explains the differences between Layer 4 (L4) and Layer 7 (L7) policies, their pros and cons, and how combining both approaches—using tools like Linkerd—can help you achieve a robust, zero-trust security model tailored to modern cloud-native environments.

https://www.buoyant.io/blog/a-guide-to-modern-kubernetes-network-policies