Recently, I’ve been studying for a new Kubernetes certification, so I was excited to get a chance to read “Kubernetes Anti-Patterns”( Packt, 2024) by Govardhana Miriyala Kannaiah. The book discusses finding anti-patterns, adopting best practices to move forward, and then charting a path forward through continuous improvement. Chock full of strategic thoughts and principles, the text really focuses on understanding the Kubernetes system. This book could be an effective starting point if you haven’t used Kubernetes before. The starting point addresses that anti-patterns are those elements that seem effective but actually degrade operations during execution. An example might be, if I put my lemonade stand in the middle of the road, traffic from both directions will have to stop and buy lemonade; however, one can see how this might be a bad idea in practice. Ten anti-patterns are listed, including misusing configuration maps or secrets, monolithic containerization, lack of resource limits and quotas, ignoring pod health probes, and bloated container images. Each of these is accompanied by a way to diagnose what might happen if not resolved. Further, the text includes why these decisions may have been chosen.The next section looks at how to fix these anti-patterns when they appear. Not for the first time, this area heavily emphasizes the DevOps cycle for flow, feedback, and improvement. Many of the best practices mirror suggestions from existing Kubernetes documentation, but the author does identify ten use-cases with problems, solutions, and implementation to resolve various issues. The last chapter in this section discusses some good strategies for optimization, such as limiting image size, maximizing network functionality, proactive health checks, and autoscaling.The book concludes by looking at some feedback loops for continuous improvement, highlighting key Kubernetes areas where the tools can provide critical information. The author suggests items like disaster recovery, financial policy, and audits can be done more effectively with Kubernetes. Summing up the entire book, three strategies are suggested: understand the foundations of Kubernetes, embrace the community, and adopt continuous improvement.My chief complaint is the lack of substance throughout. The ideas are good but there isn’t enough on the implementation side to drive success. For example, one of the real-world use cases states the problem is a lack of monitoring. I’ve encountered this a lot and would start with observability strategies, identifying architecture, designating places to store logs, traces, and metrics, coordinating dashboards, and highlighting services within K8s to satisfy those needs. The book’s suggestion boils down to fix the anti-patterns. It does mention dashboards, anomaly detection, and customer experience but does not state how to achieve it through the Kubernetes solution.“Kubernetes Anti-Patterns”( Packt, 2024) was interesting but lacked the meat I was expecting. Once the various anti-patterns were introduced, I was expecting detailed discussions about how anti-patterns occur where it occurred, with screen shots, code snippets, and various tools to resolve the issues. Instead, while clear on high-level Kubernetes, the book stays on that level. It provides an excellent look but lacks substance for the Kubernetes practitioner. It is like looking at food pictures; one can imagine how it must taste, but licking the paper will never be the same. If you are unfamiliar with Kubernetes, this can help you learn the basics, if you are more than a beginner, you can skip this one.

It is well known that a great way to learn is by making mistakes. I have also learned a lot in my career from people who do things wrong, there is always something that you can take to your way of working, and improve.That is why I find the book Kubernetes Anti-Patterns, written by Govardhana Miriyala Kannaiah, so interesting and educational. By presenting the worst practices in the use of Kubernetes, with examples of real cases, it shows us everything that should not be done if we want to have applications with good performance, resilient and secure. All this, providing not only purely technical issues, but also those of organization, communication and relationship with the users of the applications. I would highlight some chapters:🔹 Recognizing Common Kubernetes Anti-Patterns🔹 Practical Solutions and Best Practices🔹 Performance Optimization Techniques🔹 Proactive Assessment and PreventionI recommend this book, which will undoubtedly lead you to reflect, analyze your mistakes, and finally apply the recommended practices in the management of applications with Kubernetes.

The book wasn’t an easy read for me. At times, I felt like I was reading content generated by AI, which made it difficult to stay engaged.Apologies for the critical review, but that’s just my honest experience.I accessed the book through an O’Reilly subscription and didn’t purchase a physical copy.