Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Search is the signal. If you want a glimpse into where things are headed, just take a peek at this graph of search interest for Kubernetes Alternatives from the last few years. Cycle is a direct Kubernetes alternative, and having been part of building this company since 2018, I can tell you that this graph is so much more accurate than you can ever imagine. Until late 2021, talking about not using Kubernetes was met with an almost dogmatic intransigence.

Software engineering is trending, and the latest fads come and go with passionate adoption. Remember the OpenStack craze? Kubernetes? On-prem v cloud? I could go on and on, but one trend in software engineering that has surfaced in the last few years is DevOps & Platform Engineering.

Federation allows for distributing control and services across not just multiple regions, but multiple providers and environments as well. This is a critical capability for today's multi-cloud and bare metal deployments, and the idea has gained momentum for several practical reasons such as compliance, resilience, and latency. Now, more than ever, teams are expected to support multi-cloud deployments, navigate regional compliance requirements, and deliver those low latency experiences to users globally.

Believe it or not, we are in the middle of one of the biggest cloud repatriation movements of the past decade. More than ever, companies are rushing to find infrastructure solutions that better suit their needs. Over the past decade, hyperscalers have dominated the market, generating trust and, in some cases, overconfidence in software development. Drawn in by promises of reliability, ease of use, and ultimate flexibility, teams turned to providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure.

In the last few months I've had the privilege to implement and witness new and exciting Cycle platform workflows emerging. Some of these come from the evolution of our own internal work, while others I've learned from our users. Reflecting on this, I thought it would be beneficial to the community to share! In this article, I'll walk through a handful of the neatest patterns we've seen in action. So I hope you'll join me for a no fluff, real, and practical look at how to get more out of Cycle.

Consistent with the words of Darwin, there is a "survival of the fittest" mentality in the DevOps and container orchestration ecosystem. Back in 2019, when Cycle came to market, Kubernetes was among the popular choices for managing containers and remains one of the most prominent players in the space today.