Using Kubernetes and Containers to Remotely Manage User Computers

I hope you are getting ready for KubeCon coming up next week and are excited to be a part of the event. I’ll be giving a session there and hope you’ll join me. Here’s a short intro to what we’ll be discussing.

Leveraging edge computing and cloud native technologies

Just before the pandemic, a colleague and I were looking at taking over the management of our workshop computers for the conferences we put on with our company. We realized this process had been done in many different ways before, either manually or using software to automate it. This time, we wanted to use our experience and knowledge of Edge Computing and Cloud Native technologies to come up with a solution that would allow us to do a few things:

1. Manage these devices remotely
2. Schedule user environments every time a new workshop was available with only the software that was needed for that workshop
3. Be able to provision a new device quickly and add to a particular workshop pool.

To be honest, we wanted to do something that was exciting and sexy. (This is what I consider fun, after all ;). More than that, we wanted to do something that also stretched the general and accepted use of Kubernetes and containers for remotely managed user computers. Especially when you don’t want to do it in some other boring way that has been done before.

After using our Edge computing and cloud native experience, we came up with a solution where we would use fully loaded desktop linux distro containers to run each attendee’s workshop computer that we provided. This includes the whole hardware experience of the physical user computer. It’s a story about Edge computing, containers, and Kubernetes working together to manage all of the resources needed to run successful in-person workshops.

Join me at KubeCon

To know more about how we put this solution together, please attend my session, which will include how we built, deployed, and managed the environments and how they were scheduled to provide new desktop environments every 30-60 minutes for each new workshop. This session will also discuss the lessons learned, and if the demos gods allow, provide a demonstration of it all working together. Code will also be released on DevNet Code Exchange soon after KubeCon.

Enjoy your time at KubeCon. I look forward to seeing you there, virtually.

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