The New York Times’ is a US media company serves digital journalism to millions of visitors every day. The format of our stories is constantly experimented with; for example we publish graphics based on election data ingested from APIs, question and answer led discussions, breaking news live coverage, and quizzes. This leads to a lot of applications. Our previous experience with infrastructure may be a familiar one: an unruly number of virtual machines, which led us to containers. Containers give our web developers who are not infrastructure engineers the opportunity to configure and launch their applications with little oversight. Kubernetes offers us an infrastructure for our numerous applications at scale. Leveraging the Kubernetes API, we’ve built a self-service admin interface for developers (not sysadmins) to configure and launch their applications at scale, similar to the Kubernetes Dashboard project, tailored to our development workflow. Sched Link: http://sched.co/67f2

1. Eric Lewis
Web Developer
Interactive News @ The New York Times
@ericandrewlewis (short for Eric Andrew
Lewis not Eric and Rew Lewis!)

2. Kubernetes in use atKubernetes in use at
The New York TimesThe New York Times

3. Interactive NewsInteractive News
Developer-JournalistsDeveloper-Journalists
assisting with novel formsassisting with novel forms
of news coverageof news coverage

4. The (Photo) BackpackThe (Photo) Backpack

5. Parsing election dataParsing election data
https://github.com/newsdev/elex/

6. QuizzesQuizzes

7. Election
result data
collation
Quiz
maker
Watermark
tool
Live
Coverage
Realtime
Q&A
NYTimes
en Español
+ many
more
Lots of applicationsLots of applications

8. We're generalist,We're generalist,
web-leaningweb-leaning
developersdevelopers

9. In a deadline-drivenIn a deadline-driven
environment, developersenvironment, developers
need concentratedneed concentrated
responsibility.responsibility.

10. We wanted a self-We wanted a self-
service, dev-friendlyservice, dev-friendly
application platformapplication platform

11. 1. Give developer an application server
2. Give developer an application
server without root access
3. Let developer provision a server with Chef
4. Automate the use of Chef
5. Use containers loaded via Fleet
6. Use containers loaded via Kubernetes
A brief history of ourA brief history of our
infrastructureinfrastructure

12. ContainerizationContainerization
breaks down barriersbreaks down barriers
between developerbetween developer
and sys adminand sys admin

13. Containers let you run VarnishContainers let you run Varnish
in minutes to debug VCLin minutes to debug VCL

15. Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Self-service in VMs vs KubeSelf-service in VMs vs Kube
app app app
app app app
app app app

16. Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Apps in VMs are expensiveApps in VMs are expensive
"You need sign off to
create an app because a
VM costs money"

17. Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
Single
App
VM
VMs require configurationVMs require configuration
"We need to set up
networking for your app"
"Only I have the cloud provider
credentials to do that"

18. Creating an app inCreating an app in
Kubernetes isKubernetes is
nominalnominal

19. We wanted moreWe wanted more
than kubectlthan kubectl

20. App = service + rcApp = service + rc

21. Opinionated DeploysOpinionated Deploys

22. Add secretsAdd secrets

23. Next step: startNext step: start
using Kube Dashboardusing Kube Dashboard

24. Request FlowRequest Flow

26. some-app.pub.prod.int.nytimes.com
=>
some-app.pub.svc.cluster.local
Default service domain namesDefault service domain names
www.nytimes.com/something => some-app
Path-based service routingPath-based service routing
Redirects + Static asset proxyRedirects + Static asset proxy

28. Eric Lewis
@ericandrewlewis