Scaling Kubernetes in Regulated Environments Through Platform APIs
summary
Siemens scales Kubernetes across 30 platform teams and decades‑old medical devices by replacing raw cluster primitives with intent‑based platform APIs that enforce RBAC, network policies, encrypted storage (avoiding unencrypted CNPG Postgres), and audit labels so teams aren’t cluster experts. They run a Windows‑native K2S distro, use Flux and migrated ingress to Gateway API, and face 15+ year support constraints. Platform APIs cut fragmentation and upgrade pain but create bottlenecks and risky abstractions unless they expose logs and CPU/memory signals and evolve GPU capability surfaces.
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chapters (6)
- 0:00Introduction and background
- 3:24Kubernetes adoption challenges
- 7:39Security and compliance issues
- 11:54Platform APIs as solution
- 16:10Governance and abstraction balance
- 20:43Key learnings and conclusion
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