Chapter 5: Developing an Operator – Advanced Functionality

While a cluster with Operators that are capable of basic installation and upgrade functionality is a considerable improvement over non-Operator-based Kubernetes clusters, there is still more that can be done to improve cluster administration and user experience. Advanced features can help users to achieve more sophisticated automation, guide failure recovery, and inform data-driven deployment decisions with features such as metrics and status updates.

These are some of the fundamental features for higher-level Operators within the Capability Model (as described in Chapter 1, Introduction to the Operator Framework). As such, this chapter will first explain the cost and benefits of implementing advanced functionality (in relation to the effort necessary to do so) before demonstrating ways to add these features in the following sections:

• Understanding the need for advanced functionality
• Reporting status conditions...