October 2023 Summaries

Replicated is set to showcase its latest developments at KubeCon Chicago with a gold sponsorship booth, emphasizing their new product, The Builders Plan, which offers independent software vendors flexibility in using preferred installers like Helm Charts and more. The company is also highlighting its Compatibility Matrix that allows testing against over 60,000 different configurations, providing $100 in free credits to qualifying customers at the event. Attendees can look forward to engaging demos, a variety of branded swag, and opportunities to meet the founders, Grant and Marc, who are eager to connect with the Kubernetes community and share insights into the ecosystem's latest advancements.

Dexter Horthy, the product manager for Instance Insights, discusses the progress vendors are making in utilizing analytics for customer-managed environments, emphasizing the importance of custom metrics and business-oriented data. Horthy highlights how vendors are integrating instance insights into various workflows, such as customer support and marketing, and the value of metrics in understanding software performance, user adoption, and customer engagement. He notes that large customer bases benefit significantly from these insights, and the introduction of custom metrics allows for a deeper understanding of usage patterns and growth opportunities. Horthy also addresses the challenge of gaining insights from air-gapped deployments, suggesting solutions like anonymized data uploads to enhance visibility. Prioritizing development based on customer feedback and potential industry needs, he advises vendors to focus on specific metrics to align team efforts and iteratively refine their approach to measuring business success in customer environments.

Replicated has introduced a new Compatibility Matrix that significantly enhances the testing capabilities for its KOTS installer releases on a variety of Kubernetes distributions and versions, such as OpenShift, EKS, GKE, and AKS. Previously, testing was mainly conducted using K3s clusters, which, although fast and lightweight, did not fully represent the environments most customers use. With the Compatibility Matrix, Replicated can now run concurrent tests across multiple Kubernetes distributions, allowing for more comprehensive testing without increasing the overall testing time. This approach has streamlined the testing process, reduced the need for bespoke testing infrastructure, and provided greater confidence in the software's performance across diverse customer environments. The Compatibility Matrix also facilitates automatic integration of new distributions into the testing pipeline, further saving engineering time and allowing the KOTS team to focus on feature development.

Replicated has introduced Custom Metrics for Instance Insights, a new feature that enables software vendors to gather detailed usage data from customer-managed environments, traditionally a benefit reserved for SaaS applications. This enhancement allows vendors to monitor metrics beyond basic infrastructure status, providing insights into feature adoption, usage trends, and customer growth or churn risks. By integrating custom reporting, vendors can attach specific usage data to existing telemetry requests, aiding product, sales, engineering, and customer success teams in making informed decisions. The feature supports data export to various platforms such as CRMs, data warehouses, and BI tools, enhancing visibility and decision-making for vendors. While current support includes API and CSV exports, further developments aim to support telemetry collection in air-gapped environments, with opportunities for vendors to provide feedback and participate in testing and design partnerships.

Independent research commissioned by Replicated highlights the challenges and inefficiencies faced by Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) when deploying applications in customer-managed environments, which include public and private clouds, hybrid setups, and on-premises data centers, as opposed to pure SaaS models. The study reveals that Proof of Concepts (POCs) and production installations often encounter significant delays, with only a small fraction completed swiftly, affecting sales cycles and developer productivity. Many vendors find that POCs and installations are prolonged due to customer delays, access issues, compatibility problems, and the complexity of the processes. Additionally, the frequent need for developers to assist with installations diverts them from their primary tasks, impacting development schedules. The research underscores the potential benefits of using platform installer approaches, such as those involving Kubernetes clusters, to streamline these processes and improve time-to-value after sales are closed. With data collected from a diverse group of professionals globally, the study aims to provide insights into the current trends and challenges in software deployment in customer-managed environments.

Replicated's October 2023 release highlights several enhancements across its platform, focusing on improving compatibility, custom metrics, and documentation. Key updates include expanded support for Kubernetes environments within the Compatibility Matrix, enabling smoother upgrades and faster OpenShift cluster creation, and adding new instance types for Amazon EKS, Google Kubernetes Engine, and Azure Kubernetes Service. The Vendor Portal now allows users to send custom telemetry metrics and export data for large customer bases, while KOTS and the Replicated SDK have been updated to support popular continuous delivery tools and the latest Kubernetes versions. Additionally, new documentation sections have been introduced to aid in application management, resource annotation templating, and integrating Replicated GitHub actions into CI/CD workflows, offering users a more intuitive way to manage and deploy applications.

KNIME, a data science platform, has successfully modernized its on-premises products using Replicated to enhance its distribution workflow and cater to customer-managed environments. The transition involved shifting from a monolithic server to a Kubernetes-based infrastructure, which allowed for greater flexibility and scalability in handling customer demands. This modernization journey included overcoming internal skepticism and customer apprehensions about Kubernetes, which were alleviated through training, communication, and the support of Replicated’s features like automated updates and support bundles. The introduction of KNIME Hub, a cloud-based platform, facilitated collaboration and automation, addressing the needs of both small teams and large enterprises. By leveraging Replicated, KNIME has been able to streamline installations and updates, reducing complexity while maintaining control over deployments. The partnership with Replicated has also provided KNIME with valuable insights into customer usage and requirements, enhancing their ability to support and engage with their clients effectively.