Why Koneksa moved from serverless to host with Kubernetes and Pixie

Koneksa's transition to Kubernetes and Pixie from a serverless architecture reflects a strategic shift to enhance observability and manageability of their infrastructure, crucial for handling the data-intensive demands of their clinical trial platform. Initially reliant on serverless solutions like AWS Fargate for scalability, Koneksa faced challenges with cost and integration overheads, prompting a return to self-managed nodes. This move allowed for improved host-level monitoring, essential for managing the burst-like data upload patterns of trial participants. By adopting Kubernetes and integrating open-source tools like Pixie, Koneksa enhanced their ability to monitor and troubleshoot applications in real-time, providing engineers with greater insights into performance metrics without the need for additional sidecars. This shift not only optimized their rollouts but also fostered innovation through detailed monitoring, empowering engineers to take ownership of their services and improve application performance monitoring (APM).