Company
Date Published
Author
Tamir Michaeli
Word count
1495
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

Windows applications play a crucial role in many organizations, necessitating support for Windows containers when transitioning to Kubernetes-based architectures. Historically, the lack of Windows container support limited options to Linux container images until Windows containers became available, enabling more seamless DevOps practices for Windows-based applications. Observability of Windows Kubernetes clusters is complex due to the absence of privileged permissions required for metrics collection. Current solutions, like those by aidaspsibr and Octopus, involve installing extensions and using reverse proxies, but they lack generic applicability across all clusters. A novel solution utilizing OpenTelemetry and a Helm chart has been proposed to facilitate metrics collection on Windows nodes, involving a privileged Linux container for SSH connections, a reverse proxy for endpoint exposure, and an OpenTelemetry collector for metrics forwarding. While effective, this approach requires careful handling of credentials and periodic job execution to accommodate new nodes, with options like CronJobs for scheduling, and presents challenges related to job automation and pod management. Despite these challenges, this solution offers a customizable framework for integrating Windows containers into Kubernetes monitoring, with open-source resources available to adapt the process for different backends or specific user needs.