Next Steps

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We’re nearing the end of our exciting journey with Kubernetes… for now. Let’s see how we did with the success criteria we set up at the onset of this tutorial:

• Minimal vendor lock-in. Check. Although certain of our custom scripts are DigitalOcean-specific, our underlying application structure uses standard Docker and Kubernetes, not vendor-specific solutions.
• Deployment of Drupal alongside other applications. Check. We have deployed Drupal alongside Jenkins.
• Secret management. Meh. Although we are storing secrets such as the Jenkins password, we did not yet delve into how this works or how to add your own.
• LetsEncrypt. Check. All our sites are accesible using wildcard subdomains and Let’s Encrypt-backed “set-it-and-forget-it” https.
• Volumes. Meh. Although we are using volumes for our Drupal sites and our Jenkins setup (type kubectl get pvc to see your volumes), we have not yet fully explored how these work or how they tie into the structure of our Kubernetes cluster.
• Automation of incremental deployments. Nope. We have not yet touched this at all. That will be for next time.
• Easy local development. Check. Although we haven’t looked at it directly, I would recommend you play around with the Dcycle Drupal Starterkit, which we easily deployed, and which we used as a basis for our application’s Docker image.
• Branch staging environments: Meh. Although all the pieces of the puzzle are in place, we still haven’t managed to get to a point where a new or updated GitHub branches triggers a new environment; and a deleted branch triggers an environment to be deleted.

Next steps

In the next installment of this series, which will be released when it’s ready, we will delve more into:

• Secrets management on the cluster.
• Volumes and how they work.
• Automation of incremental deployments.
• Branch staging environments.

Until then, I hope your confinement is allowing you some time play around with Kubernetes!

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