#create kubernetes cluster

[govindhtech]

What is Argo CD? And When Was Argo CD Established?

What Is Argo CD?

Argo CD is declarative Kubernetes GitOps continuous delivery.

In DevOps, ArgoCD is a Continuous Delivery (CD) technology that has become well-liked for delivering applications to Kubernetes. It is based on the GitOps deployment methodology.

When was Argo CD Established?

Argo CD was created at Intuit and made publicly available following Applatix’s 2018 acquisition by Intuit. The founding developers of Applatix, Hong Wang, Jesse Suen, and Alexander Matyushentsev, made the Argo project open-source in 2017.

Why Argo CD?

Declarative and version-controlled application definitions, configurations, and environments are ideal. Automated, auditable, and easily comprehensible application deployment and lifecycle management are essential.

Getting Started

Quick Start

kubectl create namespace argocd kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml

For some features, more user-friendly documentation is offered. Refer to the upgrade guide if you want to upgrade your Argo CD. Those interested in creating third-party connectors can access developer-oriented resources.

How it works

Argo CD defines the intended application state by employing Git repositories as the source of truth, in accordance with the GitOps pattern. There are various approaches to specify Kubernetes manifests:

Applications for Customization

Helm charts

JSONNET files

Simple YAML/JSON manifest directory

Any custom configuration management tool that is set up as a plugin

The deployment of the intended application states in the designated target settings is automated by Argo CD. Deployments of applications can monitor changes to branches, tags, or pinned to a particular manifest version at a Git commit.

Architecture

The implementation of Argo CD is a Kubernetes controller that continually observes active apps and contrasts their present, live state with the target state (as defined in the Git repository). Out Of Sync is the term used to describe a deployed application whose live state differs from the target state. In addition to reporting and visualizing the differences, Argo CD offers the ability to manually or automatically sync the current state back to the intended goal state. The designated target environments can automatically apply and reflect any changes made to the intended target state in the Git repository.

Components

API Server

The Web UI, CLI, and CI/CD systems use the API, which is exposed by the gRPC/REST server. Its duties include the following:

Status reporting and application management

Launching application functions (such as rollback, sync, and user-defined actions)

Cluster credential management and repository (k8s secrets)

RBAC enforcement

Authentication, and auth delegation to outside identity providers

Git webhook event listener/forwarder

Repository Server

An internal service called the repository server keeps a local cache of the Git repository containing the application manifests. When given the following inputs, it is in charge of creating and returning the Kubernetes manifests:

URL of the repository

Revision (tag, branch, commit)

Path of the application

Template-specific configurations: helm values.yaml, parameters

A Kubernetes controller known as the application controller keeps an eye on all active apps and contrasts their actual, live state with the intended target state as defined in the repository. When it identifies an Out Of Sync application state, it may take remedial action. It is in charge of calling any user-specified hooks for lifecycle events (Sync, PostSync, and PreSync).

Features

Applications are automatically deployed to designated target environments.

Multiple configuration management/templating tools (Kustomize, Helm, Jsonnet, and plain-YAML) are supported.

Capacity to oversee and implement across several clusters

Integration of SSO (OIDC, OAuth2, LDAP, SAML 2.0, Microsoft, LinkedIn, GitHub, GitLab)

RBAC and multi-tenancy authorization policies

Rollback/Roll-anywhere to any Git repository-committed application configuration

Analysis of the application resources’ health state

Automated visualization and detection of configuration drift

Applications can be synced manually or automatically to their desired state.

Web user interface that shows program activity in real time

CLI for CI integration and automation

Integration of webhooks (GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab)

Tokens of access for automation

Hooks for PreSync, Sync, and PostSync to facilitate intricate application rollouts (such as canary and blue/green upgrades)

Application event and API call audit trails

Prometheus measurements

To override helm parameters in Git, use parameter overrides.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

[greenoperator]

Microsoft Azure Fundamentals AI-900 (Part 5)

Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals: Explore visual studio tools for machine learning

What is machine learning? A technique that uses math and statistics to create models that predict unknown values

Types of Machine learning

Regression - predict a continuous value, like a price, a sales total, a measure, etc

Classification - determine a class label.

Clustering - determine labels by grouping similar information into label groups

x = features

y = label

Azure Machine Learning Studio

You can use the workspace to develop solutions with the Azure ML service on the web portal or with developer tools

Web portal for ML solutions in Sure

Capabilities for preparing data, training models, publishing and monitoring a service.

First step assign a workspace to a studio.

Compute targets are cloud-based resources which can run model training and data exploration processes

Compute Instances - Development workstations that data scientists can use to work with data and models

Compute Clusters - Scalable clusters of VMs for on demand processing of experiment code

Inference Clusters - Deployment targets for predictive services that use your trained models

Attached Compute - Links to existing Azure compute resources like VMs or Azure data brick clusters

What is Azure Automated Machine Learning

Jobs have multiple settings

Provide information needed to specify your training scripts, compute target and Azure ML environment and run a training job

Understand the AutoML Process

ML model must be trained with existing data

Data scientists spend lots of time pre-processing and selecting data

This is time consuming and often makes inefficient use of expensive compute hardware

In Azure ML data for model training and other operations are encapsulated in a data set.

You create your own dataset.

Classification (predicting categories or classes)

Regression (predicting numeric values)

Time series forecasting (predicting numeric values at a future point in time)

After part of the data is used to train a model, then the rest of the data is used to iteratively test or cross validate the model

The metric is calculated by comparing the actual known label or value with the predicted one

Difference between the actual known and predicted is known as residuals; they indicate amount of error in the model.

Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) is a performance metric. The smaller the value, the more accurate the model’s prediction is

Normalized root mean squared error (NRMSE) standardizes the metric to be used between models which have different scales.

Shows the frequency of residual value ranges.

Residuals represents variance between predicted and true values that can’t be explained by the model, errors

Most frequently occurring residual values (errors) should be clustered around zero.

You want small errors with fewer errors at the extreme ends of the sale

Should show a diagonal trend where the predicted value correlates closely with the true value

Dotted line shows a perfect model’s performance

The closer to the line of your model’s average predicted value to the dotted, the better.

Services can be deployed as an Azure Container Instance (ACI) or to a Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster

For production AKS is recommended.

Identify regression machine learning scenarios

Regression is a form of ML

Understands the relationships between variables to predict a desired outcome

Predicts a numeric label or outcome base on variables (features)

Regression is an example of supervised ML

What is Azure Machine Learning designer

Allow you to organize, manage, and reuse complex ML workflows across projects and users

Pipelines start with the dataset you want to use to train the model

Each time you run a pipelines, the context(history) is stored as a pipeline job

Encapsulates one step in a machine learning pipeline.

Like a function in programming

In a pipeline project, you access data assets and components from the Asset Library tab

You can create data assets on the data tab from local files, web files, open at a sets, and a datastore

Data assets appear in the Asset Library

Azure ML job executes a task against a specified compute  target.

Jobs allow systematic tracking of your ML experiments and workflows.

Understand steps for regression

To train a regression model, your data set needs to include historic features and known label values.

Use the designer’s Score Model component to generate the predicted class label value

Connect all the components that will run in the experiment

Average difference between predicted and true values

It is based on the same unit as the label

The lower the value is the better the model is predicting

The square root of the mean squared difference between predicted and true values

Metric based on the same unit as the label.

A larger difference indicates greater variance in the individual  label errors

Relative metric between 0 and 1 on the square based on the square of the differences between predicted and true values

Closer to 0 means the better the model is performing.

Since the value is relative, it can compare different models with different label units

Relative metric between 0 and 1 on the square based on the absolute of the differences between predicted and true values

Closer to 0 means the better the model is performing.

Can be used to compare models where the labels are in different units

Also known as R-squared

Summarizes how much variance exists between predicted and true values

Closer to 1 means the model is performing better

Remove training components form your data and replace it with a web service inputs and outputs to handle the web requests

It does the same data transformations as the first pipeline for new data

It then uses trained model to infer/predict label values based on the features.

Create a classification model with Azure ML designer

Classification is a form of ML used to predict which category an item belongs to

Like regression this is a supervised ML technique.

Understand steps for classification

True Positive - Model predicts the label and the label is correct

False Positive - Model predicts wrong label and the data has the label

False Negative - Model predicts the wrong label, and the data does have the label

True Negative - Model predicts the label correctly and the data has the label

For multi-class classification, same approach is used. A model with 3 possible results would have a 3x3 matrix.

Diagonal lien of cells were the predicted and actual labels match

Number of cases classified as positive that are actually positive

True positives divided by (true positives + false positives)

Fraction of positive cases correctly identified

Number of true positives divided by (true positives + false negatives)

Overall metric that essentially combines precision and recall

Classification models predict probability for each possible class

For binary classification models, the probability is between 0 and 1

Setting the threshold can define when a value is interpreted as 0 or 1.  If its set to 0.5 then 0.5-1.0 is 1 and 0.0-0.4 is 0

Recall also known as True Positive Rate

Has a corresponding False Positive Rate

Plotting these two metrics on a graph for all values between 0 and 1 provides information.

Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) is the curve.

In a perfect model, this curve would be high to the top left

Area under the curve (AUC).

Remove training components form your data and replace it with a web service inputs and outputs to handle the web requests

It does the same data transformations as the first pipeline for new data

It then uses trained model to infer/predict label values based on the features.

Create a Clustering model with Azure ML designer

Clustering is used to group similar objects together based on features.

Clustering is an example of unsupervised learning, you train a model to just separate items based on their features.

Understanding steps for clustering

Prebuilt components exist that allow you to clean the data, normalize it, join tables and more

Requires a dataset that includes multiple observations of the items you want to cluster

Requires numeric features that can be used to determine similarities between individual cases

Initializing K coordinates as randomly selected points called centroids in an n-dimensional space (n is the number of dimensions in the feature vectors)

Plotting feature vectors as points in the same space and assigns a value how close they are to the closes centroid

Moving the centroids to the middle points allocated to it (mean distance)

Reassigning to the closes centroids after the move

Repeating the last two steps until tone.

Maximum distances between each point and the centroid of that point’s cluster.

If the value is high it can mean that cluster is widely dispersed.

With the Average Distance to Closer Center, we can determine how spread out the cluster is

Remove training components form your data and replace it with a web service inputs and outputs to handle the web requests

It does the same data transformations as the first pipeline for new data

It then uses trained model to infer/predict label values based on the features.

[dgruploads]

AWS EKS | Episode 14 | Creating Kubernetes cluster in EKS | Kubernetes Cluster creation

[jcmarchi]

The role of machine learning in enhancing cloud-native container security - AI News

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-role-of-machine-learning-in-enhancing-cloud-native-container-security-ai-news/

The role of machine learning in enhancing cloud-native container security - AI News

The advent of more powerful processors in the early 2000’s shipping with support in hardware for virtualisation started the computing revolution that led, in time, to what we now call the cloud. With single hardware instances able to run dozens, if not hundreds of virtual machines concurrently, businesses could offer their users multiple services and applications that would otherwise have been financially impractical, if not impossible.

But virtual machines (VMs) have several downsides. Often, an entire virtualised operating system is overkill for many applications, and although very much more malleable, scalable, and agile than a fleet of bare-metal servers, VMs still require significantly more memory and processing power, and are less agile than the next evolution of this type of technology – containers. In addition to being more easily scaled (up or down, according to demand), containerised applications consist of only the necessary parts of an application and its supporting dependencies. Therefore apps based on micro-services tend to be lighter and more easily configurable.

Virtual machines exhibit the same security issues that affect their bare-metal counterparts, and to some extent, container security issues reflect those of their component parts: a mySQL bug in a specific version of the upstream application will affect containerised versions too. With regards to VMs, bare metal installs, and containers, cybersecurity concerns and activities are very similar. But container deployments and their tooling bring specific security challenges to those charged with running apps and services, whether manually piecing together applications with choice containers, or running in production with orchestration at scale.

Container-specific security risks

Misconfiguration: Complex applications are made up of multiple containers, and misconfiguration – often only a single line in a .yaml file, can grant unnecessary privileges and increase the attack surface. For example, although it’s not trivial for an attacker to gain root access to the host machine from a container, it’s still a too-common practice to run Docker as root, with no user namespace remapping, for example.

Vulnerable container images: In 2022, Sysdig found over 1,600 images identified as malicious in Docker Hub, in addition to many containers stored in the repo with hard-coded cloud credentials, ssh keys, and NPM tokens. The process of pulling images from public registries is opaque, and the convenience of container deployment (plus pressure on developers to produce results, fast) can mean that apps can easily be constructed with inherently insecure, or even malicious components.

Orchestration layers: For larger projects, orchestration tools such as Kubernetes can increase the attack surface, usually due to misconfiguration and high levels of complexity. A 2022 survey from D2iQ found that only 42% of applications running on Kubernetes made it into production – down in part to the difficulty of administering large clusters and a steep learning curve.

According to Ari Weil at Akamai, “Kubernetes is mature, but most companies and developers don’t realise how complex […] it can be until they’re actually at scale.”

Container security with machine learning

The specific challenges of container security can be addressed using machine learning algorithms trained on observing the components of an application when it’s ‘running clean.’ By creating a baseline of normal behaviour, machine learning can identify anomalies that could indicate potential threats from unusual traffic, unauthorised changes to configuration, odd user access patterns, and unexpected system calls.

ML-based container security platforms can scan image repositories and compare each against databases of known vulnerabilities and issues. Scans can be automatically triggered and scheduled, helping prevent the addition of harmful elements during development and in production. Auto-generated audit reports can be tracked against standard benchmarks, or an organisation can set its own security standards – useful in environments where highly-sensitive data is processed.

The connectivity between specialist container security functions and orchestration software means that suspected containers can be isolated or closed immediately, insecure permissions revoked, and user access suspended. With API connections to local firewalls and VPN endpoints, entire environments or subnets can be isolated, or traffic stopped at network borders.

Final word

Machine learning can reduce the risk of data breach in containerised environments by working on several levels. Anomaly detection, asset scanning, and flagging potential misconfiguration are all possible, plus any degree of automated alerting or amelioration are relatively simple to enact.

The transformative possibilities of container-based apps can be approached without the security issues that have stopped some from exploring, developing, and running microservice-based applications. The advantages of cloud-native technologies can be won without compromising existing security standards, even in high-risk sectors.

(Image source)

[internsipgate]

Building Your Portfolio: DevOps Projects to Showcase During Your Internship

In the fast-evolving world of DevOps, a well-rounded portfolio can make all the difference when it comes to landing internships or securing full-time opportunities. Whether you’re new to DevOps or looking to enhance your skills, showcasing relevant projects in your portfolio demonstrates your technical abilities and problem-solving skills. Here’s how you can build a compelling DevOps portfolio with standout projects.https://internshipgate.com

Why a DevOps Portfolio Matters

A strong DevOps portfolio showcases your technical expertise and your ability to solve real-world challenges. It serves as a practical demonstration of your skills in:

Automation: Building pipelines and scripting workflows.

Collaboration: Managing version control and working with teams.

Problem Solving: Troubleshooting and optimizing system processes.

Tool Proficiency: Demonstrating your experience with tools like Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, Ansible, and Terraform.

By showcasing practical projects, you’ll not only impress potential recruiters but also stand out among other candidates with similar academic qualifications.

DevOps Projects to Include in Your Portfolio

Here are some project ideas you can work on to create a standout DevOps portfolio:

Automated CI/CD Pipeline

What it showcases: Your understanding of continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD).

Description: Build a pipeline using tools like Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or GitLab CI/CD to automate the build, test, and deployment process. Use a sample application and deploy it to a cloud environment like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.

Key Features:

Code integration with GitHub.

Automated testing during the CI phase.

Deployment to a staging or production environment.

Containerized Application Deployment

What it showcases: Proficiency with containerization and orchestration tools.

Description: Containerize a web application using Docker and deploy it using Kubernetes. Demonstrate scaling, load balancing, and monitoring within your cluster.

Key Features:

Create Docker images for microservices.

Deploy the services using Kubernetes manifests.

Implement health checks and auto-scaling policies.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Project

What it showcases: Mastery of Infrastructure as Code tools like Terraform or AWS CloudFormation.

Description: Write Terraform scripts to create and manage infrastructure on a cloud platform. Automate tasks such as provisioning servers, setting up networks, and deploying applications.

Key Features:

Manage infrastructure through version-controlled code.

Demonstrate multi-environment deployments (e.g., dev, staging, production).

Monitoring and Logging Setup

What it showcases: Your ability to monitor applications and systems effectively.

Description: Set up a monitoring and logging system using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, or ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana). Focus on visualizing application performance and troubleshooting issues.

Key Features:

Dashboards displaying metrics like CPU usage, memory, and response times.

Alerts for critical failures or performance bottlenecks.

Cloud Automation with Serverless Frameworks

What it showcases: Familiarity with serverless architectures and cloud services.

Description: Create a serverless application using AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, or Google Cloud Functions. Automate backend tasks like image processing or real-time data processing.

Key Features:

Trigger functions through API Gateway or cloud storage.

Integrate with other cloud services such as DynamoDB or Firestore.

Version Control and Collaboration Workflow

What it showcases: Your ability to manage and collaborate on code effectively.

Description: Create a Git workflow for a small team, implementing branching strategies (e.g., Git Flow) and pull request reviews. Document the process with markdown files.

Key Features:

Multi-branch repository with clear workflows.

Documentation on resolving merge conflicts.

Clear guidelines for code reviews and commits.

Tips for Presenting Your Portfolio

Once you’ve completed your projects, it’s time to present them effectively. Here are some tips:

Use GitHub or GitLab

Host your project repositories on platforms like GitHub or GitLab. Use README files to provide an overview of each project, including setup instructions, tools used, and key features.

Create a Personal Website

Build a simple website to showcase your projects visually. Use tools like Hugo, Jekyll, or WordPress to create an online portfolio.

Write Blogs or Case Studies

Document your projects with detailed case studies or blogs. Explain the challenges you faced, how you solved them, and the outcomes.

Include Visuals and Demos

Add screenshots, GIFs, or video demonstrations to highlight key functionalities. If possible, include live demo links to deployed applications.

Organize by Skills

Arrange your portfolio by categories such as automation, cloud computing, or monitoring to make it easy for recruiters to identify your strengths.

Final Thoughtshttps://internshipgate.com

Building a DevOps portfolio takes time and effort, but the results are worth it. By completing and showcasing hands-on projects, you demonstrate your technical expertise and passion for the field. Start with small, manageable projects and gradually take on more complex challenges. With a compelling portfolio, you’ll be well-equipped to impress recruiters and excel in your internship interviews.

[ludoonline]

Building a Reliable CI/CD Pipeline for Cloud-Native Applications

In the world of cloud-native application development, the need for rapid, reliable, and continuous delivery of software is paramount. This is where Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) pipelines come into play. These automated pipelines help development teams streamline their processes, reduce manual errors, and accelerate the delivery of high-quality cloud applications.

Building a reliable CI/CD pipeline for cloud-native applications requires careful planning, the right tools, and best practices to ensure smooth operations. In this blog, we’ll explore the essential components of a successful CI/CD pipeline and the strategies to make it both reliable and efficient for cloud-native applications.

1. Understand the Core Concepts of CI/CD

Before diving into building the pipeline, it's crucial to understand the fundamental principles behind CI/CD:

Continuous Integration (CI): This practice involves automatically integrating new code into the main branch of the codebase several times a day. CI ensures that developers are constantly merging their changes into a shared repository, making the process of finding bugs easier and helping to keep the codebase up-to-date.

Continuous Deployment (CD): In this phase, code that has passed through various testing stages is automatically deployed to production. This means that once code is committed, it undergoes automated testing and, if successful, is deployed directly to the production environment without manual intervention.

For cloud-native applications, these practices ensure that the application’s deployment cycle is not only automated but also consistent, which is essential for scaling and maintaining cloud applications.

2. Selecting the Right Tools for CI/CD

To build a reliable CI/CD pipeline, you need the right set of tools to automate the integration, testing, and deployment processes. Popular CI/CD tools include:

Jenkins: One of the most popular open-source tools for automating builds and deployments. Jenkins can be configured to work with most cloud platforms and supports a wide array of plugins for CI/CD workflows.

GitLab CI/CD: GitLab provides an integrated DevOps platform that includes version control and CI/CD capabilities, enabling seamless integration of the entire software delivery lifecycle.

CircleCI: Known for its speed and scalability, CircleCI offers cloud-native CI/CD solutions that integrate well with Kubernetes and cloud-based environments.

GitHub Actions: An emerging tool for automating workflows within GitHub repositories, making it easier to set up CI/CD directly within the GitHub interface.

Travis CI: Another cloud-native tool that offers integration with various cloud environments, including AWS, Azure, and GCP.

Selecting the right CI/CD tool will depend on your team’s needs, the complexity of your application, and your cloud environment. It's essential to choose tools that integrate well with your cloud platform and support your preferred workflows.

3. Containerization and Kubernetes for Cloud-Native Apps

Cloud-native applications rely heavily on containers to ensure consistency across different environments (development, staging, production). This is where tools like Docker and Kubernetes come in.

Docker: Docker allows you to containerize your applications, ensuring that they run the same way on any environment. By creating a Dockerfile for your application, you can package it along with its dependencies, ensuring a consistent deployment across environments.

Kubernetes: Kubernetes is a container orchestration tool that helps manage containerized applications at scale. It automates deployments, scaling, and operations of application containers across clusters of hosts. Kubernetes is crucial for deploying cloud-native applications in the cloud, providing automated scaling, load balancing, and self-healing capabilities.

Integrating Docker and Kubernetes into your CI/CD pipeline ensures that your cloud-native application can be deployed seamlessly in a cloud environment, with the flexibility to scale as needed.

4. Automated Testing in CI/CD Pipelines

Automated testing is a critical component of a reliable CI/CD pipeline. Testing ensures that code changes do not introduce bugs or break functionality. In cloud-native applications, automated testing should be incorporated into every stage of the CI/CD pipeline:

Unit Tests: Test individual components or functions of your application to ensure that the core logic is working as expected.

Integration Tests: Ensure that different parts of the application interact correctly with each other. These tests are crucial for cloud-native applications, where services often communicate across multiple containers or microservices.

End-to-End Tests: Test the application as a whole, simulating user interactions to ensure that the entire application behaves as expected in a production-like environment.

Performance Tests: Test the scalability and performance of your application under different loads. This is especially important for cloud-native applications, which must handle varying workloads and traffic spikes.

Automating these tests within the pipeline ensures that issues are identified early, reducing the time and cost of fixing them later in the process.

5. Continuous Monitoring and Feedback Loops

A reliable CI/CD pipeline doesn’t stop at deployment. Continuous monitoring and feedback are essential for maintaining the health of your cloud-native application.

Monitoring Tools: Use tools like Prometheus, Grafana, or Datadog to continuously monitor your application’s performance in the cloud. These tools provide real-time insights into application behavior, helping you identify bottlenecks and issues before they impact users.

Feedback Loops: Set up automated feedback loops that alert your team to failures, errors, or performance issues. With cloud-native applications, where services and components are distributed, real-time feedback is essential for maintaining high availability and performance.

Incorporating continuous monitoring into your CI/CD pipeline ensures that your application stays healthy and optimized after deployment, enabling rapid iteration and continuous improvement.

6. Version Control Integration

Version control is at the heart of CI/CD. For cloud-native applications, Git is the most popular version control system used for managing code changes.

Branching Strategies: Implement a branching strategy that works for your team and application. Popular strategies like GitFlow and Feature Branching help ensure smooth collaboration among development teams and facilitate automated deployments through the pipeline.

Commit and Pull Request Workflow: Ensure that every commit is reviewed and tested automatically through the CI/CD pipeline. Pull requests trigger the CI/CD process, which runs tests and, if successful, merges the changes into the main branch for deployment.

Version control integration ensures that your code is always up-to-date, maintains a clear history of changes, and triggers automated processes when changes are committed.

7. Security in the CI/CD Pipeline

Security must be a top priority when building your CI/CD pipeline, especially for cloud-native applications. Integrating security practices into the CI/CD pipeline ensures that vulnerabilities are detected early, and sensitive data is protected.

Static Code Analysis: Integrate tools like SonarQube or Snyk to perform static code analysis during the CI phase. These tools scan your codebase for known vulnerabilities and coding issues.

Secret Management: Use tools like HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager to securely manage sensitive information such as API keys, database passwords, and other credentials. Avoid hardcoding sensitive data in your source code.

Container Security: Perform security scans on your Docker images using tools like Clair or Aqua Security to identify vulnerabilities in containerized applications before deployment.

Building security into your CI/CD pipeline (often referred to as DevSecOps) ensures that your cloud-native applications are secure by design and compliant with industry regulations.

8. Best Practices for a Reliable CI/CD Pipeline

To build a truly reliable CI/CD pipeline, here are some best practices:

Keep Pipelines Simple and Modular: Break your CI/CD pipeline into smaller, manageable stages that are easier to maintain and troubleshoot.

Automate as Much as Possible: From testing to deployment, automation is the key to a reliable pipeline.

Monitor Pipeline Health: Regularly monitor the health of your pipeline and address failures quickly to avoid delays in the deployment process.

Rollback Mechanisms: Ensure that your pipeline includes automated rollback mechanisms for quick recovery if something goes wrong during deployment.

By following these best practices, you can ensure that your CI/CD pipeline is efficient, reliable, and capable of handling the complexities of cloud-native applications.

Conclusion

Building a reliable CI/CD pipeline for cloud-native applications is essential for enabling fast, frequent, and high-quality deployments. By integrating automation, containerization, security, and continuous monitoring into your pipeline, you can ensure that your cloud-native applications are delivered quickly and reliably, while minimizing risks.

By choosing the right tools, implementing automated testing, and following best practices, organizations can enhance the efficiency of their software development lifecycle, enabling teams to innovate faster and deliver value to their customers.

For organizations looking to optimize their cloud-native CI/CD pipelines, Salzen offers expertise and solutions to help streamline the process, ensuring faster delivery and high-quality results for every deployment.

[videoddd]

How to Monitor Your Kubernetes Clusters with Prometheus and Grafana on AWS

Creating a solid application monitoring and observability strategy is a critical foundational step when deploying infrastructure or software in any environment. Monitoring ensures that your systems are running smoothly, while observability provides insights into the internal state of your application through the data generated. Together, they help you detect and address issues proactively rather…

[hawkstack]

A Practical Guide to CKA/CKAD Preparation in 2025

The Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) and Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) certifications are highly sought-after credentials in the cloud-native ecosystem. These certifications validate your skills and knowledge in managing and developing applications on Kubernetes. This guide provides a practical roadmap for preparing for these exams in 2025.

1. Understand the Exam Objectives

CKA: Focuses on the skills required to administer a Kubernetes cluster. Key areas include cluster architecture, installation, configuration, networking, storage, security, and troubleshooting.

CKAD: Focuses on the skills required to design, build, and deploy cloud-native applications on Kubernetes. Key areas include application design, deployment, configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting.

Refer to the official CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) websites for the latest exam curriculum and updates.

2. Build a Strong Foundation

Linux Fundamentals: A solid understanding of Linux command-line tools and concepts is essential for both exams.

Containerization Concepts: Learn about containerization technologies like Docker, including images, containers, and registries.

Kubernetes Fundamentals: Understand core Kubernetes concepts like pods, deployments, services, namespaces, and controllers.

3. Hands-on Practice is Key

Set up a Kubernetes Cluster: Use Minikube, Kind, or a cloud-based Kubernetes service to create a local or remote cluster for practice.

Practice with kubectl: Master the kubectl command-line tool, which is essential for interacting with Kubernetes clusters.

Solve Practice Exercises: Use online resources, practice exams, and mock tests to reinforce your learning and identify areas for improvement.

4. Utilize Effective Learning Resources

Official CNCF Documentation: The official Kubernetes documentation is a comprehensive resource for learning about Kubernetes concepts and features.

Online Courses: Platforms like Udemy, Coursera, and edX offer CKA/CKAD preparation courses with video lectures, hands-on labs, and practice exams.

Books and Study Guides: Several books and study guides are available to help you prepare for the exams.

Community Resources: Engage with the Kubernetes community through forums, Slack channels, and meetups to learn from others and get your questions answered.

5. Exam-Specific Tips

CKA:

Focus on cluster administration tasks like installation, upgrades, and troubleshooting.

Practice managing cluster resources, security, and networking.

Be comfortable with etcd and control plane components.

CKAD:

Focus on application development and deployment tasks.

Practice writing YAML manifests for Kubernetes resources.

Understand application lifecycle management and troubleshooting.

6. Time Management and Exam Strategy

Allocate Sufficient Time: Dedicate enough time for preparation, considering your current knowledge and experience.

Create a Study Plan: Develop a structured study plan with clear goals and timelines.

Practice Time Management: During practice exams, simulate the exam environment and practice managing your time effectively.

Familiarize Yourself with the Exam Environment: The CKA/CKAD exams are online, proctored exams with a command-line interface. Familiarize yourself with the exam environment and tools beforehand.

7. Stay Updated

Kubernetes is constantly evolving. Stay updated with the latest releases, features, and best practices.

Follow the CNCF and Kubernetes community for announcements and updates.

For more information www.hawkstack.com

[shivamthakrejr]

AI Data Center Builder Nscale Secures $155M Investment

Nscale Ltd., a startup based in London that creates data centers designed for artificial intelligence tasks, has raised $155 million to expand its infrastructure.

The Series A funding round was announced today. Sandton Capital Partners led the investment, with contributions from Kestrel 0x1, Blue Sky Capital Managers, and Florence Capital. The funding announcement comes just a few weeks after one of Nscale’s AI clusters was listed in the Top500 as one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

The Svartisen Cluster took the 156th spot with a maximum performance of 12.38 petaflops and 66,528 cores. Nscale built the system using servers that each have six chips from Advanced Micro Devices Inc.: two central processing units and four MI250X machine learning accelerators. The MI250X has two graphics cards made with a six-nanometer process, plus 128 gigabytes of memory to store data for AI models.

The servers are connected through an Ethernet network that Nscale created using chips from Broadcom Inc. The network uses a technology called RoCE, which allows data to move directly between two machines without going through their CPUs, making the process faster. RoCE also automatically handles tasks like finding overloaded network links and sending data to other connections to avoid delays.

On the software side, Nscale’s hardware runs on a custom-built platform that manages the entire infrastructure. It combines Kubernetes with Slurm, a well-known open-source tool for managing data center systems. Both Kubernetes and Slurm automatically decide which tasks should run on which server in a cluster. However, they are different in a few ways. Kubernetes has a self-healing feature that lets it fix certain problems on its own. Slurm, on the other hand, uses a network technology called MPI, which moves data between different parts of an AI task very efficiently.

Nscale built the Svartisen Cluster in Glomfjord, a small village in Norway, which is located inside the Arctic Circle. The data center (shown in the picture) gets its power from a nearby hydroelectric dam and is directly connected to the internet through a fiber-optic cable. The cable has double redundancy, meaning it can keep working even if several key parts fail. 

The company makes its infrastructure available to customers in multiple ways. It offers AI training clusters and an inference service that automatically adjusts hardware resources depending on the workload. There are also bare-metal infrastructure options, which let users customize the software that runs their systems in more detail.

Customers can either download AI models from Nscale's algorithm library or upload their own. The company says it provides a ready-made compiler toolkit that helps convert user workloads into a format that runs smoothly on its servers. For users wanting to create their own custom AI solutions, Nscale provides flexible, high-performance infrastructure that acts as a builder ai platform, helping them optimize and deploy personalized models at scale.

Right now, Nscale is building data centers that together use 300 megawatts of power. That’s 10 times more electricity than the company’s Glomfjord facility uses. Using the Series A funding round announced today, Nscale will grow its pipeline by 1,000 megawatts. “The biggest challenge to scaling the market is the huge amount of continuous electricity needed to power these large GPU superclusters,” said Nscale CEO Joshua Payne. Read this link also : https://sifted.eu/articles/tech-events-2025

“Nscale has a 1.3GW pipeline of sites in our portfolio, which lets us design everything from scratch – the data center, the supercluster, and the cloud environment – all the way through for our customers.” The company will build new data centers in North America and Europe. The company plans to build 120 megawatts of data center capacity next year. The new infrastructure will support Nscale’s upcoming public cloud service, which will focus on training and inference tasks, and is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2025.

[koronkowy]

Summary

🌐 Introduction to Kubernetes Security:

Ian Coldwater discusses Kubernetes security challenges, highlighting its complexity and the risks of insecure defaults.

The session covers the evolution from virtual machines to containers and Kubernetes, emphasizing how these innovations brought scalability but also new vulnerabilities.

🛠️ Common Kubernetes Security Issues:

Insecure Defaults: Early Kubernetes versions left many ports and APIs open by default, making them easy targets for hackers.

Configuration Variability: Different configurations based on cloud providers, user installations, and plugins create inconsistencies and make hardening difficult.

Notable Hacks: Examples like Tesla and Weight Watchers being hacked due to poor Kubernetes configurations demonstrate the risks of insecure setups.

🔒 Threat Modeling for Kubernetes:

Understand the adversaries' motivations, whether financial, ideological, or opportunistic.

Targeted attackers exploit open ports, exposed credentials, and outdated versions with known vulnerabilities.

Threat models should consider external attackers, compromised containers, and insider threats.

🔧 Practical Security Measures:

Harden APIs: Use TLS for secure communications and limit access to APIs.

Update Regularly: Keep Kubernetes updated to leverage newer, more secure versions.

Monitor Logs: Maintain audit logs and monitor activities outside the cluster to prevent tampering.

Apply Principles of Least Privilege: Limit access permissions to prevent lateral movement within clusters.

🚀 Defensive Strategies:

Use tools like static code analysis and Clair by CoreOS to identify vulnerabilities.

Periodically test containers and applications to ensure no new vulnerabilities arise.

Reduce attack surfaces by restricting communication and locking down networking.

[codezup]

Building a Scalable Redis Cluster with Docker and Kubernetes

Introduction Building a Scalable Redis Cluster with Docker and Kubernetes is a crucial task for modern distributed systems. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of creating a highly available and scalable Redis cluster using Docker and Kubernetes. By the end of this tutorial, you will have a comprehensive understanding of how to design, implement, and manage a Redis cluster in…

[annabelledarcie]

Breaking Down AI Software Development: Tools, Frameworks, and Best Practices

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is redefining how software is designed, developed, and deployed. Whether you're building intelligent chatbots, predictive analytics tools, or advanced recommendation engines, the journey of AI software development requires a deep understanding of the right tools, frameworks, and methodologies. In this blog, we’ll break down the key components of AI software development to guide you through the process of creating cutting-edge solutions.

The AI Software Development Lifecycle

The development of AI-driven software shares similarities with traditional software processes but introduces unique challenges, such as managing large datasets, training machine learning models, and deploying AI systems effectively. The lifecycle typically includes:

Problem Identification and Feasibility Study

Define the problem and determine if AI is the appropriate solution.

Conduct a feasibility analysis to assess technical and business viability.

Data Collection and Preprocessing

Gather high-quality, domain-specific data.

Clean, annotate, and preprocess data for training AI models.

Model Selection and Development

Choose suitable machine learning algorithms or pre-trained models.

Fine-tune models using frameworks like TensorFlow or PyTorch.

Integration and Deployment

Integrate AI components into the software system.

Ensure seamless deployment in production environments using tools like Docker or Kubernetes.

Monitoring and Maintenance

Continuously monitor AI performance and update models to adapt to new data.

Key Tools for AI Software Development

1. Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)

Jupyter Notebook: Ideal for prototyping and visualizing data.

PyCharm: Features robust support for Python-based AI development.

2. Data Manipulation and Analysis

Pandas and NumPy: For data manipulation and statistical analysis.

Apache Spark: Scalable framework for big data processing.

3. Machine Learning and Deep Learning Frameworks

TensorFlow: A versatile library for building and training machine learning models.

PyTorch: Known for its flexibility and dynamic computation graph.

Scikit-learn: Perfect for implementing classical machine learning algorithms.

4. Data Visualization Tools

Matplotlib and Seaborn: For creating informative charts and graphs.

Tableau and Power BI: Simplify complex data insights for stakeholders.

5. Cloud Platforms

Google Cloud AI: Offers scalable infrastructure and AI APIs.

AWS Machine Learning: Provides end-to-end AI development tools.

Microsoft Azure AI: Integrates seamlessly with enterprise environments.

6. AI-Specific Tools

Hugging Face Transformers: Pre-trained NLP models for quick deployment.

OpenAI APIs: For building conversational agents and generative AI applications.

Top Frameworks for AI Software Development

Frameworks are essential for building scalable, maintainable, and efficient AI solutions. Here are some popular ones:

1. TensorFlow

Open-source library developed by Google.

Supports deep learning, reinforcement learning, and more.

Ideal for building custom AI models.

2. PyTorch

Developed by Facebook AI Research.

Known for its simplicity and support for dynamic computation graphs.

Widely used in academic and research settings.

3. Keras

High-level API built on top of TensorFlow.

Simplifies the implementation of neural networks.

Suitable for beginners and rapid prototyping.

4. Scikit-learn

Provides simple and efficient tools for predictive data analysis.

Includes a wide range of algorithms like SVMs, decision trees, and clustering.

5. MXNet

Scalable and flexible deep learning framework.

Offers dynamic and symbolic programming.

Best Practices for AI Software Development

1. Understand the Problem Domain

Clearly define the problem AI is solving.

Collaborate with domain experts to gather insights and requirements.

2. Focus on Data Quality

Use diverse and unbiased datasets to train AI models.

Ensure data preprocessing includes normalization, augmentation, and outlier handling.

3. Prioritize Model Explainability

Opt for interpretable models when decisions impact critical domains.

Use tools like SHAP or LIME to explain model predictions.

4. Implement Robust Testing

Perform unit testing for individual AI components.

Conduct validation with unseen datasets to measure model generalization.

5. Ensure Scalability

Design AI systems to handle increasing data and user demands.

Use cloud-native solutions to scale seamlessly.

6. Incorporate Continuous Learning

Update models regularly with new data to maintain relevance.

Leverage automated ML pipelines for retraining and redeployment.

7. Address Ethical Concerns

Adhere to ethical AI principles, including fairness, accountability, and transparency.

Regularly audit AI models for bias and unintended consequences.

Challenges in AI Software Development

Data Availability and Privacy

Acquiring quality data while respecting privacy laws like GDPR can be challenging.

Algorithm Bias

Biased data can lead to unfair AI predictions, impacting user trust.

Integration Complexity

Incorporating AI into existing systems requires careful planning and architecture design.

High Computational Costs

Training large models demands significant computational resources.

Skill Gaps

Developing AI solutions requires expertise in machine learning, data science, and software engineering.

Future Trends in AI Software Development

Low-Code/No-Code AI Platforms

Democratizing AI development by enabling non-technical users to create AI-driven applications.

AI-Powered Software Development

Tools like Copilot will increasingly assist developers in writing code and troubleshooting issues.

Federated Learning

Enhancing data privacy by training AI models across decentralized devices.

Edge AI

AI models deployed on edge devices for real-time processing and low-latency applications.

AI in DevOps

Automating CI/CD pipelines with AI to accelerate development cycles.

Conclusion

AI software development is an evolving discipline, offering tools and frameworks to tackle complex problems while redefining how software is created. By embracing the right technologies, adhering to best practices, and addressing potential challenges proactively, developers can unlock AI's full potential to build intelligent, efficient, and impactful systems.

The future of software development is undeniably AI-driven—start transforming your processes today!

[qcsdclabs]

Red Hat Linux: Paving the Way for Innovation in 2025 and Beyond

As we move into 2025, Red Hat Linux continues to play a crucial role in shaping the world of open-source software, enterprise IT, and cloud computing. With its focus on stability, security, and scalability, Red Hat has been an indispensable platform for businesses and developers alike. As technology evolves, Red Hat's contributions are becoming more essential than ever, driving innovation and empowering organizations to thrive in an increasingly digital world.

1. Leading the Open-Source Revolution

Red Hat’s commitment to open-source technology has been at the heart of its success, and it will remain one of its most significant contributions in 2025. By fostering an open ecosystem, Red Hat enables innovation and collaboration that benefits developers, businesses, and the tech community at large. In 2025, Red Hat will continue to empower developers through its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform, providing the tools and infrastructure necessary to create next-generation applications. With a focus on security patches, continuous improvement, and accessibility, Red Hat is poised to solidify its position as the cornerstone of the open-source world.

2. Advancing Cloud-Native Technologies

The cloud has already transformed businesses, and Red Hat is at the forefront of this transformation. In 2025, Red Hat will continue to contribute significantly to the growth of cloud-native technologies, enabling organizations to scale and innovate faster. By offering RHEL on multiple public clouds and enhancing its integration with Kubernetes, OpenShift, and container-based architectures, Red Hat will support enterprises in building highly resilient, agile cloud environments. With its expertise in hybrid cloud infrastructure, Red Hat will help businesses manage workloads across diverse environments, whether on-premises, in the public cloud, or in a multicloud setup.

3. Embracing Edge Computing

As the world becomes more connected, the need for edge computing grows. In 2025, Red Hat’s contributions to edge computing will be vital in helping organizations deploy and manage applications at the edge—closer to the source of data. This move minimizes latency, optimizes resource usage, and allows for real-time processing. With Red Hat OpenShift’s edge computing capabilities, businesses can seamlessly orchestrate workloads across distributed devices and networks. Red Hat will continue to innovate in this space, empowering industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, and transportation with more efficient, edge-optimized solutions.

4. Strengthening Security in the Digital Age

Security has always been a priority for Red Hat, and as cyber threats become more sophisticated, the company’s contributions to enterprise security will grow exponentially. By leveraging technologies such as SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux) and integrating with modern security standards, Red Hat ensures that systems running on RHEL are protected against emerging threats. In 2025, Red Hat will further enhance its security offerings with tools like Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security (ACS) for Kubernetes and OpenShift, helping organizations safeguard their containerized environments. As cybersecurity continues to be a pressing concern, Red Hat’s proactive approach to security will remain a key asset for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve.

5. Building the Future of AI and Automation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation are transforming every sector, and Red Hat is making strides in integrating these technologies into its platform. In 2025, Red Hat will continue to contribute to the AI ecosystem by providing the infrastructure necessary for AI-driven workloads. Through OpenShift and Ansible automation, Red Hat will empower organizations to build and manage AI-powered applications at scale, ensuring businesses can quickly adapt to changing market demands. The growing need for intelligent automation will see Red Hat lead the charge in helping businesses automate processes, reduce costs, and optimize performance.

6. Expanding the Ecosystem of Partners

Red Hat’s success has been in large part due to its expansive ecosystem of partners, from cloud providers to software vendors and systems integrators. In 2025, Red Hat will continue to expand this network, bringing more businesses into its open-source fold. Collaborations with major cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud will ensure that Red Hat’s solutions remain at the cutting edge of cloud technology, while its partnerships with enterprises in industries like telecommunications, healthcare, and finance will further extend the company’s reach. Red Hat's strong partner network will be essential in helping businesses migrate to the cloud and stay ahead in the competitive landscape.

7. Sustainability and Environmental Impact

As the world turns its attention to sustainability, Red Hat is committed to reducing its environmental impact. The company has already made strides in promoting green IT solutions, such as optimizing power consumption in data centers and offering more energy-efficient infrastructure for businesses. In 2025, Red Hat will continue to focus on delivering solutions that not only benefit businesses but also contribute positively to the planet. Through innovation in cloud computing, automation, and edge computing, Red Hat will help organizations lower their carbon footprints and build sustainable, eco-friendly systems.

Conclusion: Red Hat’s Role in Shaping 2025 and Beyond

As we look ahead to 2025, Red Hat Linux stands as a key player in the ongoing transformation of IT, enterprise infrastructure, and the global technology ecosystem. Through its continued commitment to open-source development, cloud-native technologies, edge computing, cybersecurity, AI, and automation, Red Hat will not only help organizations stay ahead of the technological curve but also empower them to navigate the challenges and opportunities of the future. Red Hat's contributions in 2025 and beyond will undoubtedly continue to shape the way we work, innovate, and connect in the digital age.

for more details please visit 

👇👇

hawkstack.com

qcsdclabs.com

[qcsdslabs]

Red Hat OpenShift for Beginners: A Guide to Breaking Into The World of Kubernetes

If containers are the future of application development, Red Hat OpenShift is the leading k8s platform that helps you make your applications faster than ever. If you’re completely clueless about OpenShift, don’t worry! I am here to help you with all the necessary information.

1. What is OpenShift?

As an extension of k8s, OpenShift is an enterprise-grade platform as a service that enables organizations to make modern applications in a journaling cloud environment. They offer out of the box CI CD tools, hosting, and scalability making them one of the strongest competitors in the market.

2. Install the Application

As a cloud deployment, you can go with Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA) or if you want a local solution you can use OpenShift Local (Previously CRC). For a local installation, make sure you have 16 GB of RAM, 4 CPUs, and enough storage.

3. Get Started With It

Start by going to the official Red Hat website and downloading OpenShift Local use the executable to start the cluster, or go to the openshift web console to set up a cluster with your preferred cloud service.

4. Signing In

Simply log onto the web console from the URL you used during the installation. Enter the admin credentials and you have successfully set everything up.

5. Setting Up A Project

To set up a project, click on Projects > Create Project.

Labe the project and start deploying the applications

For more information visit: www.hawkstack.com

[jcmarchi]

Nscale to Invest $2.5 Billion in UK Data Centres, Powering Generative AI and Government Ambitions

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/nscale-to-invest-2-5-billion-in-uk-data-centres-powering-generative-ai-and-government-ambitions/

Nscale to Invest $2.5 Billion in UK Data Centres, Powering Generative AI and Government Ambitions

Nscale, a London-headquartered AI hyperscaler, has unveiled plans to invest an impressive $2.5 billion (£2 billion) in the UK’s data centre industry over the next three years. This major commitment is set to bolster the UK Government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan and the country’s ambitions to become a global leader in generative AI. Nscale’s expansion will include the construction of advanced AI data centres—both fixed and modular—powered by clean energy and equipped with cutting-edge GPU technology to meet the fast-growing demand for AI-driven workloads.

Investing $2.5 Billion in UK Data Centres

Underlining its commitment to the UK, Nscale confirmed its first local data centre with the purchase of a site in Loughton. The facility is slated to go live in Q4 2026 and is designed to support 50 MW of AI and high-performance computing (HPC) capacity, with the potential to scale up to 90 MW. When fully deployed, this location can host up to 45,000 of the latest NVIDIA GB200 GPUs, all efficiently cooled through advanced liquid-cooling systems. This single site is expected to create 500 jobs during the construction phase and an additional 250 positions over three years for ongoing operations.

Beyond the Loughton site, Nscale aims to begin constructing multiple modular UK-based data centres in Q3 and Q4 2025, with further fixed data centre expansions planned for subsequent years. These facilities will provide vital, sovereign AI infrastructure, ensuring that data stays within Europe. This move is poised to nurture innovation and accelerate the UK’s global competitiveness in AI, unlocking new commercial investment while empowering the local AI startup community.

Catalyzing Sovereignty and Innovation

Nscale’s investment not only supports the UK Government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan—it also emphasizes data sovereignty. According to Karl Havard, COO of Nscale, a secure, generative AI cloud is key to meeting the growing need for sovereign infrastructure. With more industries and institutions prioritizing data security, the new data centres will deliver high-performance AI capabilities while ensuring critical information remains within UK borders. By blending sovereignty with next-generation AI infrastructure, Nscale is attracting additional overseas investment and fostering a thriving AI ecosystem across the country.

Sustainable AI at Scale

Sustainability lies at the heart of Nscale’s approach. The company powers its operations with 100% renewable energy, complemented by energy-efficient adiabatic cooling where possible—practices already in place at its 60 MW data centre in Norway. These measures result in up to 40% improvement in resource efficiency, an average 80% cost saving compared to other hyperscalers, and 30% faster time to insights for AI projects.

Nscale’s AI infrastructure is grounded in a vertically integrated approach, meaning the company owns and operates the entire technology stack. From advanced data centre hardware to a sophisticated orchestration layer that leverages Kubernetes and Slurm, Nscale can optimise each component for top performance. Nscale’s GPU offerings include models such as the NVIDIA A100, H100, GB200, and AMD MI300X and MI250X—each catering to various AI workloads like model training, fine-tuning, and large-scale inference.

Driving AI Forward

With a $155 million Series A funding round concluded, Nscale is channeling capital toward a global 1.3 GW pipeline of greenfield data centres spread across Europe and North America. CEO Josh Payne notes that these expansions enable the deployment of high-performance GPU clusters more efficiently and at scale, fueling rapid growth in generative AI. “Our investment in the UK marks a significant milestone in building next-generation AI infrastructure. This expansion will help us meet the growing demand for generative AI by deploying advanced GPU clusters more efficiently. Additionally, capital from our recent funding round will accelerate our global 1.3 GW pipeline of greenfield data centres, with 120 MW planned for development in 2025. This underscores our commitment to delivering sustainable, scalable AI infrastructure that drives innovation and economic growth.”

Nscale’s UK data centre investments align closely with the country’s commitment to secure a leadership position in AI by 2030. Science, Innovation, and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has lauded the announcement, stating that “Nscale’s investment reinforces the UK’s standing as a global leader in AI and shows real confidence in our blueprint to turbocharge the use of the technology and how we’re delivering our Plan for Change to put AI to work for communities across the country. Their support will serve as a catalyst for innovation – sending a clear message that Britain is the perfect home from home to drive growth, deliver high-skilled jobs, and access the cutting-edge tools that will fuel the AI revolution.”

Accelerating Model Training and Fine-Tuning

Nscale’s cloud platform is specifically engineered to cut down on AI development hurdles. Thanks to a GPU-optimised architecture, the company provides:

30% Faster Insights: A streamlined stack that reduces time to value for AI projects.

80% Lower Cost: On average, significantly more cost-effective than competing hyperscalers.

40% More Efficient: Enhanced resource utilisation, ensuring performance gains without compromising sustainability.

This approach extends to specialized workloads, including model training and fine-tuning. Through simplified scheduling and orchestration, customers can rapidly spin up Slurm clusters on Kubernetes, enabling robust job management and containerized deployments. Whether for large language model training or fine-tuning smaller datasets, Nscale offers flexible compute options tailored to each stage of AI development.

Looking Ahead

Nscale‘s $2.5 billion investment marks a pivotal moment in the UK’s journey to become a global AI leader. By building out advanced data centre infrastructure, driving sustainable AI practices, and offering an integrated suite of GPU services, Nscale is igniting new opportunities for industries, startups, and research institutions alike. As the UK Government steers the nation toward 2030 AI leadership, Nscale’s forward-thinking investments will play a critical role in shaping the future of AI, fueling cutting-edge innovation while adhering to environmentally responsible practices.

[fromdevcom]

Introduction Too much monitoring and alert fatigue is a serious issue for today's engineering teams. Nowadays, there are several open-source and third-party solutions available to help you sort through the noise. It always seems too good to be true, and it probably is. However, as Kubernetes deployments have grown in complexity and size, performance optimization and observability have become critical to guaranteeing optimal resource usage and early issue identification. Kubernetes events give unique and unambiguous information about cluster health and performance. And in these days of too much data, they also give clear insight with minimal noise. In this article, we will learn about Kubernetes events and their importance, their types, and how to access them. What is a Kubernetes Event? A Kubernetes event is an object that displays what is going on inside a cluster, node, pod, or container. These items are typically created in reaction to changes that occur inside your K8s system. The Kubernetes API Server allows all key components to generate these events. In general, each event includes a log message. However, they are quite different and have no other effect on one another. Importance of Kubernetes Events When any of the resources that Kubernetes manages changes, it broadcasts an event. These events frequently provide crucial metadata about the object that caused them, such as the event category (Normal, Warning, Error), as well as the reason. This data is often saved in etcd and made available by running specific kubectl commands. These events help us understand what happened behind the scenes when an entity entered a given state. You may also obtain an aggregated list of all events by running kubectl get events. Events are produced by every part of a cluster, therefore as your Kubernetes environment grows, so will the amount of events your system produces. Furthermore, every change in your system generates events, and even healthy and normal operations require changes in a perfectly running system. This means that a big proportion of the events created by your clusters are purely informative and may not be relevant when debugging an issue. Monitoring Kubernetes Events Monitoring Kubernetes events can help you identify issues with pod scheduling, resource limits, access to external volumes, and other elements of your Kubernetes setup. Events give rich contextual hints that will assist you in troubleshooting these issues and ensuring system health, allowing you to keep your Kubernetes-based apps and infrastructure stable, reliable, and efficient. How to Identify Which Kubernetes Events are Important Naturally, there are a variety of events that may be relevant to your Kubernetes setup, and various issues may arise when Kubernetes or your cloud platform executes basic functions. Let's get into each main event. Failed Events The kube-scheduler in Kubernetes schedules pods, which contain containers that operate your application on available nodes. The kubelet monitors the node's resource use and guarantees that containers execute as intended. The building of the underlying container fails when the kube-scheduler fails to schedule a pod, causing the kubelet to generate a warning event. Eviction Events Eviction events are another crucial event to keep track of since they indicate when a node removes running pods. The most typical reason for an eviction event is a node's insufficient incompressible resources, such as RAM or storage. The kubelet generates resource-exhaustion eviction events on the affected node. In case Kubernetes determines that a pod is utilizing more incompressible resources than what its runtime permits, it can remove the pod from its node and arrange for a new time slot. Volume Events A directory holding data (like an external library) that a pod may access and expose to its containers so they can carry out their workloads with any necessary dependencies is known as a Kubernetes volume.

Separating this linked data from the pod offers a failsafe way for retaining information if the pod breaks, as well as facilitating data exchange amongst containers on the same pod. When Kubernetes assigns a volume to a new pod, it first detaches it from the node it is presently on, attaches it to the required node, and then mounts it onto a pod. Unready Node Events Node readiness is one of the requirements that the node's kubelet consistently returns as true or false. The kubelet creates unready node events when a node transitions from ready to not ready, indicating that it is not ready for pod scheduling.  How to Access Kubernetes Events Metrics, logs, and events may be exported from Kubernetes for observability. With a variety of methods at your fingertips, events may be a valuable source of information about what's going on in your services. Kubernetes does not have built-in functionality for accessing, storing, or forwarding long-term events. It stores it for a brief period of time before cleaning it up. However, Kubernetes event logs may be retrieved directly from the cluster using Kubectl and collected or monitored using a logging tool. Running the kubectl describe command on a given cluster resource will provide a list of its events. A more general approach is to use the kubectl get events command, which lists the events of specified resources or the whole cluster. Many free and commercial third-party solutions assist in providing visibility and reporting Kubernetes cluster events. Let's look at some free, open-source tools and how they may be used to monitor your Kubernetes installation: KubeWatch KubeWatch is an excellent open-source solution for monitoring and broadcasting K8s events to third-party applications and webhooks. You may set it up to deliver notifications to Slack channels when major status changes occur. You may also use it to transmit events to analytics and alerting systems such as Prometheus. Events Exporter The Kubernetes Events Exporter is a good alternative to K8s' native observing mechanisms. It allows you to constantly monitor K8s events and list them as needed. It also extracts a number of metrics from the data it collects, such as event counts and unique event counts, and offers a simple monitoring configuration. EventRouter EventRouter is another excellent open-source solution for gathering Kubernetes events. It is simple to build up and seeks to stream Kubernetes events to numerous sources, as described in its documentation. However, like KubeWatch, it does not have querying or persistent capabilities. To get the full experience, you should link it to a third-party storage and analysis tool. Conclusion Kubernetes events provide an excellent approach to monitor and improve the performance of your K8s clusters. They become more effective when combined with realistic tactics and vast toolsets. I hope this article helps you to understand the importance of Kubernetes events and how to get the most out of them.