Getting Humbled by Kubernetes
Recently, I tried learning Kubernetes. In a previous post, I took notes on concepts I should have been familiar with before starting Kubernetes up. I thought I had enough awareness of topics like networking, yaml files, and linux, but they proved to be too challenging for me.
I thought I could just dive in, so I tried spinning up a cluster through Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). Even following the tutorials on GKE, I was not entirely sure what I was doing. When I tried setting up a basic web server without the tutorials and exposed my nodes, I clicked the IP address, but the web page was not loading, meaning I definitely configured something incorrectly.
To make matters worse, I left the clusters running for a few days, so Google Cloud charged some money to my account since my free trial expired. Seeing that charge was quite the scare because I did not want to be charged for something I was struggling to understand. And I did read some posts saying that it was easy to accidentally get charged too much when practicing with cloud services.
In hindsight, perhaps it was not the best idea to start with a containerization platform, like Kubernetes, when I still needed to learn how containers themselves worked. I saw some suggestions saying how it may be easier to learn how Docker works first before jumping to Kubernetess. There is also k3s, which is a simplified version of Kubernetes. I think I may need to go even more foundational than that and just try to set up a basic nginx web server in a virtual machine first.
Like with any subject, it’s better to start with the fundamentals instead of going straight into the more complex topics. It reminds me of when I was learning another skill, sketching. I couldn’t just start with drawing realism right away. It was necessary to take the time to practice concepts like shapes, planes, line weight, and shadows.
Although I am a bit embarrassed that Kubernetes humbled me so much, I am glad I was able to have this experience and learn from it. My next project will definitely be something more achievable.