In the evolving landscape of cloud-native technologies, Kubernetes has emerged as the de facto standard for container orchestration. SAP Kyma, SAP’s open-source project for extending and integrating applications in the cloud, builds deeply on Kubernetes to deliver powerful, scalable, and flexible enterprise solutions. This article introduces Kubernetes and explains how SAP Kyma leverages it to accelerate cloud-native development in the SAP ecosystem.
Kubernetes (often abbreviated as K8s) is an open-source platform originally developed by Google for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Containers package applications and their dependencies into a standardized unit, enabling consistent and efficient operation across different environments.
Kubernetes abstracts the underlying infrastructure, enabling developers to focus on building applications while the platform handles operational complexities.
SAP Kyma is an open-source platform designed to extend and integrate applications using serverless functions, microservices, and event-driven architecture, all running on Kubernetes. Kyma enables developers and enterprises to build cloud-native applications and easily connect them with SAP solutions and third-party services.
SAP Kyma leverages Kubernetes as the foundational infrastructure layer to provide a scalable, resilient, and flexible environment for cloud-native workloads. Here’s how:
Kyma runs its core components and user workloads (microservices, functions) as containers managed by Kubernetes. This ensures consistent execution, easy scaling, and isolation between components.
Using Kubernetes’ native capabilities, Kyma automatically scales applications based on demand. Kubernetes’ self-healing features ensure that failed components are restarted or replaced without manual intervention.
Kyma uses Kubernetes’ powerful API machinery to extend the platform with custom resources and controllers. This allows Kyma to implement specialized functionality such as eventing, service mesh integration, and API management while maintaining native Kubernetes compatibility.
Kyma builds on Kubernetes eventing frameworks, enabling applications to react asynchronously to events, improving responsiveness and decoupling services for better maintainability.
Kyma integrates with Kubernetes-native service meshes (e.g., Istio) to manage secure communication, traffic routing, and observability between microservices.
Kubernetes’ declarative configuration model is embraced by Kyma, allowing developers to define desired states via YAML manifests and automate deployment pipelines. Kyma provides additional tools and dashboards on top of Kubernetes to simplify development, monitoring, and management.
Kubernetes is the backbone of modern cloud-native applications, providing automation, scalability, and resilience. SAP Kyma harnesses the power of Kubernetes to offer a comprehensive platform for extending SAP solutions and building integrated cloud-native applications. By leveraging Kubernetes, Kyma empowers organizations to innovate faster, scale effortlessly, and integrate seamlessly within the SAP ecosystem and beyond.