kubeplus VS porter

We went through this migration/upgrade in our KubePlus project (https://github.com/cloud-ark/kubeplus). It has an embedded webhook in it, fyi.

You might want to check out - KubePlus (https://github.com/cloud-ark/kubeplus), which has already been referenced in the thread and is exactly designed for building managed application services. I am the originator and core contributor to this project. KubePlus is a Kubernetes Operator that takes an application Helm chart and represents it as a Kubernetes API (CRD) on the cluster. This API allows you to create instances of the application in separate namespaces automatically ensuring a secure perimeter around each instance using NetworkPolicy, Resource Quota, and RBAC. These soft multi-tenancy measures are already mentioned in the thread along with the namespace. KubePlus has automated all of them for you under an API. This API not only allows the creation of the application instances but also supports day-2 operations such as monitoring, troubleshooting, and upgrades to simplify the end-to-end functioning of any managed application service. We are currently seeing interest from teams that want to create managed services for different types of containerized applications, including open-source platforms such as WordPress, Moodle, Ozone/OpenMRS, AI/ML workloads, etc. KubePlus has been tested successfully with all (90+) Bitnami Helm charts. For anyone who wants to deliver a managed application with minimal / no Kubernetes access to their customers, KubePlus can help by accelerating the implementation of namespace-based multi-tenancy on Kubernetes. With the ability to set NetworkPolicy and Resource Quota per application instance, the blast radius is restricted, if something goes wrong in an application instance. KubePlus does not need admin permissions on your cluster. This makes it possible to use KubePlus to manage your application instances on your customer's cluster as well.

We have an FAQ about Operators here: https://github.com/cloud-ark/kubeplus/blob/master/Operator-F...

It should be helpful if you are new to the Operator concept.

Operators are generally useful for handling domain-specific actions - for example, performing database backups, installing plugins on Moodle/Wordpress, etc. If you are looking for application deployment then a Helm chart should be sufficient.

If you are currently delivering your SaaS as a separate instance of your application per customer, you might want to check out our open-source project KubePlus - https://github.com/cloud-ark/kubeplus

A more commerical offering is from Cloudark who have designed a specific solution for operating your Helm application as a SaaS offering. I have never used it (ArgoCD being my poison) but you might find it fits your usecase better

As part of your data platform are you planning to create a separate instance of the database for your end customer? If so, you might find our KubePlus Operator helpful. Check it out here: https://github.com/cloud-ark/kubeplus

We have been helping organizations build such multi-instance multi-tenant cloud-native applications. We start with an application Helm chart and create separate release of it per customer/user of that organization. We have an open source Kubernetes Operator that aids in this: https://github.com/cloud-ark/kubeplus

You might also want to checkout Operator guidelines and Operator FAQ: - Operator Maturity Model guidelines: https://github.com/cloud-ark/kubeplus/blob/master/Guidelines.md

The project that is getting some traction recently is our KubePlus Operator that delivers Helm charts as-a-service: https://github.com/cloud-ark/kubeplus

This is just a concept. AFAIK only one implemented this concept is Microsoft's project porter: https://github.com/getporter/porter

For porter I am talking about this project https://porter.run/ and NOT this https://porter.sh/

Porter

As far as I know the tool is used at least in Microsoft. The classic use case is where you want to install an application and also define the infrastructure as well (i.e cluster + db + lb + app). You can see the examples here https://github.com/getporter/porter/tree/main/examples

Check https://cnab.io/ and https://porter.sh/

I'm closely tracking an effort by Microsoft that aims to do a lot of what you're describing since I find myself bridging between these tools and deploying stacks that span tools and roles. [CNAB](https://cnab.io/) and the front-running implementation, [Porter](https://porter.sh/), enable one-step infra deployments, packaged as a single OCI-compatible container, with any number of steps, using the best tools for each of those steps. Think of using aws-cli for some initialization step (create or verify presence of a state bucket), applying some terraform to create infra, and finishing with a helm chart to complete deployment of app components. Each stage in a bundle packages not only the code to run it but also the execution binary of the tool that runs it. The spec and porter are still a moving target but it's a promising space and a nice adjacent evolution of the current state of tooling.

Cool, it's great to know that it isn't abandoned.

I'm not sure why you'd say that their business model was a success. They were bought by Microsoft for Azure. I guess I wonder if a PaaS company can survive without getting the profits off renting the machines to people. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all have PaaS options based around the idea that it comes bundled with the compute, not as a standalone open-source thing for you to use on any platform.

I guess the question is whether Porter's business plan is "make enough that a company that owns a cloud wants to buy us". Oracle could probably use a nice PaaS platform and team. Maybe DigitalOcean would like to beef up their PaaS offering by acqui-hiring a team with proven knowledge.

Poking around https://deislabs.io, it's interesting to see that they have a project called "Porter" which seems to be unrelated to the "Porter" being launched here: https://porter.sh. They aren't quite the same, but they both have "easily run your app" goals.

There is already this from Microsoft https://github.com/getporter/porter