Over 60% of organizations have adopted Kubernetes (Statista). If you’re one of these organizations, then you won’t need an explanation of what exactly Kubernetes is. However, if you’re still to join in the Kubernetes trend, don’t worry; it’s simpler than you think.
In a nutshell, Kubernetes is an open-source platform that allows you to deploy and manage containerized applications (which are applications that run in isolated packages of code) from anywhere. Essentially, this makes life much easier for organizations when it comes to managing their applications, as a lot of time-consuming manual work is removed from the process. Plus, Kubernetes also has a great autoscaling feature, so you can easily scale up or down based on demand. For example, you can use the Vertical Pod Autoscale (VPA) feature to have the CPU and memory automatically adjusted for the machines currently being used.
Moving into the future, countless tech companies will be joining the likes of Google, Shopify, and Robinhood when it comes to using Kubernetes — but where do ingress controllers fit into all of this? Let’s take a closer look and start to unpack everything.
What is an Ingress Controller?
An ingress controller is a reverse proxy and load balancer. Through the power of an ingress controller, you can easily route traffic to any applications you’re running as Kubernetes services. Think of an ingress controller as a middleman who’s there to keep everything under control and flowing nicely.
When you use the best ingress controller for Kubernetes, traffic from outside the Kubernetes platform can be easily accepted and load-balanced to your containerized apps. At the same time, this ingress controller can monitor the pods and clusters in Kubernetes while running automatic updates whenever new load-balanced rules are added (or deleted) from a specific application.
Improved security is also a big benefit of having an ingress controller in place. Ingress controllers provide you with SSL termination, which is the smart process of decrypting encrypted traffic before passing it along to the web server. What this means is that clients can experience more secure communication when using services, which is a win-win for everyone involved. Not to mention, ingress controllers also use request filtering to prevent unauthorized access from the outside (as well as preventing other security threats), which is also great for security.
Why You Need to Use an Ingress Controller
The most exciting aspect of using an ingress controller is that you get to save valuable time and money. Sure, there are load balancers and application delivery controllers (ADCs) on the market that you can use instead, but they aren’t specifically made for Kubernetes — while an ingress controller is. Thanks to the reliability and versatility of ingress controllers, you can put your complete trust in them, just like thousands of other companies around the world have done.
Can You Use Multiple Ingress Controllers?
The simple answer is yes: you technically can use multiple ingress controllers. Having said this, though, it’s highly recommended that you don’t. Instead, it’s much better to choose one primary ingress controller so that you can prevent potential conflicts while ensuring that your traffic routing rules remain consistent. Naturally, if there are multiple ingress controllers in place, things can get a little messy, which is something you obviously don’t want to happen.
Summary
To wrap things up, an ingress controller is exactly what you need if you want to manage external traffic and boost your overall security while operating in Kubernetes. At long last, you’ll be able to expose your services to the huge outside world while ensuring scalability, which is extremely important in today’s world of applications.
