What is Cloudfleet?

Cloudfleet’s mission is to transform infrastructure management by delivering seamless, automated, and scalable solutions that unify resources across datacenters, clouds, and edge environments. We aim to provide just-in-time infrastructure, automated upgrades, and advanced permissions management, all through a single, intuitive interface.

The Cloudfleet Kubernetes Engine (CFKE), is a fully managed Kubernetes service designed to run containerized workloads on clusters spanning multiple cloud providers and on-premise environments. CFKE centralizes Kubernetes control with a single managed control plane, capable of overseeing nodes distributed across diverse platforms and infrastructure setups.

Kubernetes is an open-source system that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Cloudfleet delivers a fully CNCF-conformant Kubernetes service, ensuring that any workload compatible with Kubernetes can seamlessly operate on Cloudfleet Kubernetes Engine (CFKE).

What is Cloudfleet good for?

Cost Optimization

Cloudfleet empowers organizations to optimize the cost-efficiency of their entire application portfolio across all dimensions. Instead of requiring you to define rigid capacity sizes upfront when creating your Kubernetes cluster—before you even deploy your first workload—Cloudfleet works backward from your actual workload requirements. You deploy your applications on Cloudfleet, and we determine the optimal size, cost, and location of the infrastructure needed to run them. You always have the option to define specific constraints, such as running your application in a particular jurisdiction or on a specific machine type, while Cloudfleet handles the rest.

By simply using pod labels, you can seamlessly move your workloads to spot instances, newer and more cost-effective instances, or even different architectures like ARM.

Multi-Cloud Flexibility

Cloudfleet avoids locking you into a specific cloud provider, region, or data center. Instead, you connect your multiple cloud accounts to Cloudfleet, which then provides a consistent experience across all of them. This allows you to run your workloads simultaneously on different clouds or easily migrate them between cloud environments.

Cloudfleet differentiates itself from other multi-cloud Kubernetes solutions through its unique architecture. It’s not just a Kubernetes distribution compatible with various clouds; Cloudfleet offers a single, managed cluster that can simultaneously manage compute power across different clouds. This enables you to interact with one unified Kubernetes cluster to deploy and monitor applications on multiple clouds and seamlessly move workloads between them.

Hybrid Cloud Integration

In addition to public clouds, Cloudfleet offers first-class support for on-premise infrastructure. You can add any Linux server to your Cloudfleet Kubernetes cluster, managing your on-premise assets in the same way you manage public cloud resources. Just as Cloudfleet connects multiple clouds and regions, it also securely connects your multiple data centers, enabling you to manage your on-premise capacity via a single Kubernetes cluster.

For example, if most of your applications run in your on-premise data centers, but you have a specific machine learning training job requiring custom hardware that is only available on a public cloud provider, Cloudfleet allows you to run your applications as usual while “spilling over” to the cloud for the duration that particular job requires.

Edge Computing Capabilities

If you manage applications across multiple sites, you can add your edge infrastructure as Kubernetes nodes to Cloudfleet. Your edge locations connect securely to each other and to Cloudfleet’s control plane, allowing you to manage all your edge locations through a single Kubernetes interface. Your edge locations only need a simple internet connection to become part of Cloudfleet.

For instance, if you are a manufacturing company with multiple production sites, each with its own mini data center, you can use Cloudfleet to deploy and manage the lifecycle of your applications across these sites and monitor all workloads from your headquarters.

Features of Cloudfleet

Managed Control Plane

CFKE provides a managed Kubernetes control plane that ensures high availability and scalability of Kubernetes API servers and the persistence layer. In the Pro version and above, CFKE deploys the control plane across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) to enhance resilience and automatically replaces unhealthy control plane nodes.

Kubernetes Compatibility and Support

CFKE runs upstream Kubernetes and adheres to Kubernetes conformance standards. This compatibility allows you to leverage existing plug-ins and tools from the Kubernetes ecosystem. Applications deployed on CFKE can seamlessly operate alongside or migrate to other standard Kubernetes environments, whether on-premises or in public clouds, without requiring code refactoring. For further details, refer to the Kubernetes version lifecycle documentation. Please see the Kubernetes version management for more information.

Free to Start

Cloudfleet offers a Basic Edition that allows you to explore the platform and its features without incurring any costs. The Basic Edition includes a fully managed Kubernetes control plane and a limited number of compute nodes, enabling you to deploy and run containerized workloads across multiple cloud providers and on-premise environments. CFKE Basic Edition is used by many customers for development, testing, and small non-critical workloads. For more information, refer to the Pricing documentation.

Node Auto-provisioning

CFKE simplifies Kubernetes management by automating the provisioning of cluster infrastructure for compute and networking. It dynamically selects optimal compute instances, scales resources as needed, optimizes costs, and integrates with major cloud provider services, providing a hands-free infrastructure management experience. For more information, refer to the Node auto-provisioning documentation.

Hybrid Deployments

Cloudfleet enables hybrid deployments by allowing self-managed Linux servers to join your cluster with a single command. This feature empowers customers to integrate their existing on-premises infrastructure or utilize servers from unsupported cloud providers within the CFKE Node Auto-provisioner. For more information, refer to the self-managed nodes documentation.

Global Secure Networking

CFKE establishes a secure, encrypted network connecting nodes across various clouds and regions. This capability enables a unified Kubernetes cluster that spans different cloud providers and on-premise environments, allowing workloads across regions and datacenters to operate as if on the same network. For more information, refer to the Networking Architecture documentation.

Access to Public Cloud APIs

CFKE simplifies the use of public cloud APIs by providing secure access from workloads running on CFKE without the need for hard-coded credentials. Utilizing OIDC for integration, CFKE supports interaction with services from providers such as AWS, GCP, and Azure, as well as any third-party APIs compatible with OIDC. For more information, refer to the Public Cloud APIs documentation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What can I do with Cloudfleet Kubernetes Engine (CFKE)?

With Cloudfleet Kubernetes Engine, you can run any containerized workloads on a Kubernetes cluster that spans multiple cloud providers and on-premise environments. CFKE provides a single Kubernetes control plane that can manage nodes in different cloud providers and on-premise environments.

You may find CFKE useful if you need to support multiple cloud providers or need to distribute workloads geographically across the same cloud provider. You can also use CFKE to run workloads primarily on-premise and burst to the cloud when needed. CFKE makes migrations between cloud providers and on-premise environments seamless.

CFKE fits into many use cases where you need to run workloads on multiple cloud providers and on-premise environments.

Q: What are the differences between Cloudfleet Kubernetes Engine (CFKE) and other multi-cloud Kubernetes solutions?

CFKE provides a single Kubernetes control plane that can manage nodes in different cloud providers and on-premise environments at the same time. This allows you to have a single Kubernetes cluster that can span multiple cloud providers and on-premise environments. CFKE also provides a single pane of glass to manage your infrastructure across different cloud providers and on-premise environments.

Under CFKE, workloads can communicate with each other over a secure overlay network in the same IP space. This allows you to run workloads on different cloud providers and on-premise environments as if they are in the same network.

Other solutions require you to have multiple Kubernetes clusters, one for each cloud provider or on-premise environment. This makes it difficult to manage and maintain the infrastructure across different environments and requires migration efforts to move workloads between different clusters.

Q: How long does it take to create a Cloudfleet Kubernetes Engine (CFKE) cluster?

Creation of a CFKE cluster takes little less than 2 minutes.

Q: How do I add nodes to my Cloudfleet Kubernetes Engine (CFKE) cluster?

Unlike traditional Kubernetes offerings, CFKE assumes the responsibility of managing the infrastructure in your cluster based on your workload specifications.

CFKE can automatically provision nodes in supported cloud providers based on your workload specifications. In this way, you do not need to decide on the number or type of nodes to add to your cluster. CFKE will automatically provision the nodes based on your workload requirements, upgrade and repair them. The only thing you need to do is to configure a Fleet in the CFKE console. A Fleet represents a collection of nodes that are managed by CFKE in one or more cloud providers. See the Fleet and Fleet Types section for more information.

Once a Fleet is configured, you deploy your Kubernetes workloads to the cluster. Based on different factors such as the number of pods, CPU and memory requirements, CFKE will automatically provision the nodes in the cloud provider that you have configured in the Fleet. CFKE offers a very large set of configurations that you can use to fine-tune the node provisioning process. See the Node Auto-provisioning section for more information.

Node auto-provisioning only supports a limited number of cloud providers. Although Cloudfleet team is constantly working to add support for more cloud providers, there may always be cases where you want to bring nodes from an unsupported cloud provider. In addition to that, you may want to bring your on-premise nodes to your cluster. For that, CFKE supports adding self-managed nodes. Self-managed nodes are any type of Linux servers that you manually add to your CFKE clusters. Adding a self-managed node to a cluster is very straightforward and requires only a few steps. See the self-managed nodes section for more information.

Q: How much does Cloudfleet Kubernetes Engine (CFKE) cost?

Cloudfleet offers a generous free tier that includes one Basic Tier cluster that can include compute nodes up to 24 vCPUs. Basic Tier is suitable for development, testing, and small non-critical workloads. For critical production workloads, it is recommended to use Pro Tier that offers better availability and support. The Pro Tier charges a control plane fee. The first 24 vCPUs are free, and additional usage is billed based on the number of vCPUs managed in your cluster.

Please visit the Pricing section to learn more about the different tiers and their pricing.

Q: How do I get started with Cloudfleet Kubernetes Engine?

You should create an organization or be invited to an existing organization to get started with Cloudfleet. Please visit the Getting Started section to learn how to create a new organization.