☸️ Kubernetes

Secure, Observable, Cost-Smart Platform—As Code

Kubernetes (K8s) gives you a standardized, portable runtime for containers—when designed with security, governance, and evidence baked in.
SolveForce builds Kubernetes platforms that are secure-by-default, GitOps-driven, observable, and cost-aware across AWS/EKS, Azure/AKS, GCP/GKE, and on-prem—wired to identity, keys, and policy so you can ship fast and pass audits.

How K8s fits the SolveForce system:
☁️ Platform → Cloud • 🛠️ IaC → Infrastructure as Code • 🚀 Pipelines → DevOps / CI-CD
🔐 Security → Cybersecurity • 🔑 Keys/Secrets → Key Management / HSM • Secrets Management • PKI • Encryption
📊 Evidence/Automation → SIEM / SOAR • 🧠 AI → Vector Databases & RAG

---

🎯 Outcomes (Why SolveForce K8s)

• Platform as code— clusters, add-ons, and policies are reproducible, reviewed, and versioned.
• Secure-by-default— mTLS, admission controls, allowed images, least privilege, and network segmentation.
• Observable & SLO-driven— golden signals, traces, and release markers tied to error budgets.
• Cost-smart— autoscaling, bin-packing, spot/priority, and right-sizing baked into the design.
• Audit-ready— every deploy and policy decision ships evidence to SIEM with change IDs.

---

🧭 Scope (What we build & operate)

• Clusters & node groups— managed control planes (EKS/AKS/GKE) and on-prem; Linux + optional Windows pools; GPU/accelerator pools.
• Networking (CNI)— CIDR & IPAM, NetworkPolicy, egress policies, Ingress/Layer-7 gateways.
• Service mesh (optional)— mTLS, L7 intent/policy, traffic splits, retries/timeouts, telemetry.
• Storage— CSI drivers, dynamic PVCs, snapshots/backup/restore.
• GitOps— Argo CD/Flux for declarative state; drift detection and reconcile.
• Security— admission control (Gatekeeper/Kyverno), image policy/attestations, secrets, RBAC, Pod Security, runtime controls.
• Observability— Prometheus/OTel metrics, logs, traces; dashboards, alerts, and SLOs.
• FinOps— HPA/VPA, Cluster Autoscaler/Karpenter, bin-packing, spot/priority classes.

---

🧱 Building Blocks (Spelled out)

• Provisioning & IaC— Terraform/CloudFormation/Bicep/Pulumi + cluster add-on managers; remote state + Object Lock. → Infrastructure as Code
• Identity & RBAC— OIDC federation, short-lived tokens, groups→roles mapping, namespace tenancy. → IAM / SSO / MFA
• Networking— CNI (VPC-CNI/Cilium/Calico), NetworkPolicy default-deny, egress allow-lists, private endpoints.
• Ingress/L7— Ingress controller or Gateway API; WAF at the edge; mTLS to services where required. → WAF / Bot Management
• Certificates/PKI— cluster & mesh mTLS, service cert rotation (SPIFFE/SVID or ACME). → PKI
• Secrets— CSI Secrets Store, vault sidecar, Transit encryption; no plaintext in manifests. → Secrets Management • Encryption
• Supply chain— SBOMs (SPDX/CycloneDX), image signatures (Cosign/Sigstore), admission verify + policy as code.
• Policies— Gatekeeper/Kyverno guardrails (proc caps, root fs ro, host-net/IPC bans, trusted registries, labels/owners).
• Runtime— seccomp, AppArmor, read-only FS, minimal capabilities, eBPF runtime sensors.

---

🏗️ Reference Architectures

---

🔒 Security & Zero-Trust (Concrete controls)

• Admission — deny unsigned/unattested images; enforce labels/owners; block privileged pods/hostPath; PSL “restricted”.
• Identity — OIDC SSO/MFA for humans; service identity via SPIFFE or short-lived certs/tokens.
• Network — default-deny; only declared Service→Service flows; egress DNS/TLS allow-lists. → Microsegmentation
• Boundary — WAF/Bot at edge; origins cloaked; mTLS north-south to services. → WAF / Bot Management
• Secrets — vault + CSI; rotated and short-lived; Transit for encryption. → Secrets Management
• Keys — HSM/KMS custody; envelope encryption; dual-control. → Key Management / HSM
• Ops safety — break-glass via PAM; session-recorded; cluster admin separated. → PAM

---

📦 Storage & Backup/DR

• CSI drivers— dynamic PVCs; snapshot/restore classes; topology-aware provisioning.
• Backups— Velero-style or vendor; etcd + PVC snapshots; restore drills with artifacts.
• DR patterns— app-level replication; multi-region clusters; failover runbooks.
  → Cloud Backup • DRaaS

---

📈 Observability & SLOs

• Metrics— Prometheus/OTel + recording rules; golden signals (latency, traffic, errors, saturation).
• Traces/logs— OpenTelemetry → backend; correlate with release markers; error budgets drive rollouts.
• Dashboards & alerts— per service/team; SLO widgets; alert on saturation and 95p/99p tail.
• SIEM— audit, kube-api, admission, image policy, and network denies to SIEM; SOAR handles rollback/quarantine. → SIEM / SOAR

---

📐 SLO Guardrails (Experience & safety you can measure)

SLO / KPI	Target (Recommended)
Pod start (p95)	≤ 5–15 s (image cached), ≤ 30–60 s (cold)
Deployment success rate	≥ 99% (post-canary)
Admission policy eval (p95)	≤ 100–300 ms
P99 service latency budget add	≤ +5–15 ms from mesh/L7 polices
Cluster availability	≥ 99.9–99.99% (control plane)
Image pull time (p95)	≤ 3–10 s (with registry cache)
Evidence completeness (releases)	100% (plan, tests, approvals, logs)

SLO breaches pause promotions and trigger SOAR (rollback, scale, or route-shift). → SIEM / SOAR

---

💰 FinOps (Cost that behaves)

• Right-sizerequests/limits; VPA hints; bin-packing with topology spread.
• Autoscaling— HPA (CPU/QPS/custom), VPA (recommend/apply), Cluster Autoscaler/Karpenter.
• Spot/priority— mix spot/ondemand; PDBs & priorities; disruption budgets.
• Caching & images— local registry caches; layer reuse; buildx/cache-to-from in CI.
  → FinOps

---

🧰 Supply Chain & CI-CD

• SBOMon every build; dependency scanning; license policy gates.
• Image signingwith Cosign; verify in admission; attestations for provenance.
• Progressive delivery— canary/blue-green/traffic splits; auto-rollback on SLO dip.
• GitOps— PR-gated desired state; drift detection & reconcile; evidence to SIEM.
  → DevOps / CI-CD • SIEM / SOAR

---

📜 Compliance Mapping (Examples)

• PCI DSS— segmentation, encryption, WAF evidence, audit logs/export.
• HIPAA— least privilege, secrets custody, immutable logs, DR drills.
• ISO 27001— ops security, access control, change evidence.
• NIST 800-53/171— AC/AU/SC/CM families; admission + logging.
• CMMC— configuration & access maturity; evidence packs exportable.

---

🛠️ Implementation Blueprint (No-Surprise Rollout)

1. Assess & target — apps, SLOs, compliance, tenancy model (namespaces/orgs).
2. Provision clusters/node pools as code; private endpoints; baseline add-ons. → Infrastructure as Code
3. Identity & policy — OIDC federation; RBAC; Gatekeeper/Kyverno rules; PSL restricted. → IAM / SSO / MFA
4. Networking — CNI + NetworkPolicy default-deny; egress allow-lists; Ingress/WAF/CDN. → WAF / Bot Management
5. Secrets & keys — vault + CSI; Transit; CMK/HSM; rotate. → Secrets Management • Key Management / HSM
6. Supply chain — SBOM, signing, admission verify; registry policies.
7. Observability — metrics/logs/traces + release markers; SLO dashboards; exports to SIEM. → SIEM / SOAR
8. Backups & DR — etcd/PVC snapshots; restore drills; artifacts archived. → Cloud Backup • DRaaS
9. Operate & tune — weekly posture/cost review; drift fixes; publish RCAs & improvements.

---

✅ Pre-Engagement Checklist

---

🔄 Where Kubernetes Fits (Recursive View)

1) Grammar — runs atop Connectivity & Networks & Data Centers.
2) Syntax — a key pattern in Cloud, declared via IaC.
3) Semantics — Cybersecurity enforces truth (admission, identity, encryption).
4) Pragmatics — SolveForce AI predicts risk/cost, flags drift, and assists rollouts.
5) Foundation — consistent terms via Primacy of Language and ontology.
6) Map — indexed in the SolveForce Codex & Knowledge Hub.

---

📞 Launch Kubernetes That’s Secure, Fast & Auditable

Related pages:
Cloud • Infrastructure as Code • DevOps / CI-CD • SIEM / SOAR • Cybersecurity • Secrets Management • Key Management / HSM • PKI • Encryption • Microsegmentation • Vector Databases & RAG • Data Warehouse / Lakes • Knowledge Hub

---

Key terms in plain language

Open a term for a concise explanation of language used on this page.

⏱️Latency

The time it takes data to travel between two points. Lower latency improves voice, video meetings, cloud applications, gaming, and other real-time services.

♻️Disaster Recovery (DRaaS)

A plan and service for restoring applications, data, and operations after an outage or disruption. DRaaS provides recovery infrastructure through a managed cloud service.

🛡️Cybersecurity

The practices and controls used to protect identities, devices, networks, applications, and data from unauthorized access, disruption, or manipulation.

🚫Zero Trust

A security model that does not automatically trust a user or device because of its location. Access is continuously verified and limited to what is necessary.

🧭SASE

Secure Access Service Edge combines networking and security capabilities in a cloud-delivered architecture so users and locations can receive consistent policy wherever they connect.

🪪Identity and Access Management (IAM)

The systems and policies that determine who a user is, what resources they may access, and how that access is authenticated and reviewed.

✅Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

A login control requiring more than one form of verification, such as a password plus an authenticator app, security key, or biometric factor.

🏢Colocation

Placing customer-owned servers and network equipment in a professionally operated data center that provides power, cooling, physical security, and connectivity.