Kubernetes has become the de facto standard for container orchestration, but that does not mean every company needs it. Implementing K8s is a serious investment in infrastructure and expertise.
When Kubernetes is needed
Microservice architecture with 10+ services, auto-scaling for variable loads, multi-cloud strategy, CI/CD with multiple daily releases. If your application is a monolith with stable load, K8s adds complexity without benefit.
Managed Kubernetes vs self-hosted
AKS (Azure) — free control plane, best for Microsoft stack. EKS (AWS) — deep AWS ecosystem integration. GKE (Google) — most mature managed K8s for cloud-native projects. Self-hosted requires 2–3 DevOps engineers just for cluster maintenance.
How SL Global Service solves this
SGS engineers help with the full cycle: feasibility assessment, production-ready cluster on AKS or EKS, CI/CD via GitHub Actions with GitOps (ArgoCD), Prometheus + Grafana monitoring. Managed support 24/7.
Before implementing K8s, assess your needs. Fewer than 5 services — Docker Compose or PaaS will be simpler.
“Kubernetes is a powerful tool but not a silver bullet. I have seen companies spend months on K8s for 3 microservices when Docker Compose would have sufficed.”
Serhii Balashuk, CEO Softline IT, partner of SL Global Service