Build Systems that Drive Business
June 11–12, 2018: Training
June 12–14, 2018: Tutorials & Conference
San Jose, CA

More than a series of tubes: Networking in Kubernetes

Jeff Poole (Vivint Smart Home)
1:15pm–1:55pm Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Kubernetes
 Location: LL20 A/B Level: Advanced
Secondary topics: Systems Architecture & Infrastructure
Average rating: *****
(5.00, 2 ratings)
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Prerequisite knowledge

  • A basic understanding of how IP packets are routed, how ethernet packets are switched, and how ARP works to look up the physical address for an IP

What you'll learn

  • Learn best practices for networking with Docker and Kubernetes

Description

Networking with Docker and Kubernetes is a lot more complex than with traditional servers and virtual machines. Docker uses network namespaces and virtual interfaces to isolate container networks, while Kubernetes may use iptables rules to provide service routing and is commonly deployed with an overlay network (such as Flannel) in order to support a large IP space without having to reconfigure the existing physical network. Beyond that, you can add in network policies if that isn’t confusing enough.

Jeff Poole offers an overview of the concepts involved and explains what tuning may be required to use Kubernetes successfully. Jeff also covers examples of tracing network traffic through the system and explores special considerations, such as how to determine if you need to adjust the ARP table size on your hosts.

Photo of Jeff Poole

Jeff Poole

Vivint Smart Home

Jeff Poole is an engineering director over a set of teams that handle both operations and software development at Vivint Smart Home, where he works on the backend platform that powers the smart home and security aspects of Vivint’s products. Over his career, he’s held a diverse collection of roles and responsibilities, including technical lead in creating a multi-data-center-hosted VoIP platform and principal engineer designing networking hardware for defense applications. An adrenaline junkie, he’s moved from skydiving to working on an ambulance and in an ER to working on production systems.