Cloud & DevOps
Kubernetes: design, deploy and operate your clusters without surprises
Kubernetes is the reference container orchestration platform: it spreads your applications across a set of machines, restarts what fails, adjusts the number of instances to the load and deploys without downtime. In return, it demands careful design and precise operational skills.
This service is for SaaS publishers, high-traffic platforms and teams already running several containerised services that need high availability, autoscaling or frequent deployments. It is also for teams that inherited a poorly understood cluster and want to regain control of it.
We design and deploy managed (Amazon EKS) or lightweight (k3s) clusters with infrastructure as code, package your applications as Helm charts, configure ingress, certificates, horizontal autoscaling, secrets management and observability, and train your team for day-to-day operations.
When do we step in?
Several services to orchestrate
Your application consists of several containerised services with dependencies, message queues and workers. Managing them with Compose on one server hits its limits in availability and scaling.
Unpredictable load peaks
Traffic varies widely by time of day or campaign. Horizontal autoscaling of pods and nodes adjusts capacity automatically, without permanent over-provisioning.
Zero-downtime deployments
You ship several times a day and every deployment must be invisible to users: rolling updates, readiness probes and immediate rollback on failure.
Inherited, poorly understood cluster
A cluster was set up by a contractor or a former colleague. Nobody knows how to upgrade it, manifests are scattered and every change is frightening.
Need for a lightweight Kubernetes
You want the benefits of Kubernetes on one or two servers, or at the edge, without the cost of a managed cluster. k3s delivers the essentials with a small footprint.
How we work
- 1
Scoping and distribution choice
We assess your applications, traffic, in-house skills and budget to choose between a managed cluster like EKS, a lightweight distribution like k3s, or a simpler alternative if Kubernetes is not justified.
- 2
Cluster provisioning
Creating the cluster and node groups in Terraform, networking and security policies, IAM or RBAC, storage classes, and environment separation by namespace or by cluster.
- 3
Application packaging
Writing Helm charts or Kustomize manifests per service, with resource requests and limits, liveness and readiness probes, ConfigMaps and secrets management through External Secrets or Sealed Secrets.
- 4
Exposure and certificates
Setting up an ingress controller (Nginx, Traefik or AWS Load Balancer Controller), automatic TLS certificate issuance with cert-manager, and routing rules by domain and path.
- 5
Autoscaling and resilience
Configuring the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler on relevant metrics, node autoscaling with Cluster Autoscaler or Karpenter, Pod Disruption Budgets and multi-zone distribution.
- 6
Observability and operations
Prometheus, Grafana and Loki or a managed service, per-service dashboards, alerts, GitOps deployments with Argo CD, cluster upgrade procedures and team training.
Technologies we use
- Amazon EKS
- k3s
- Helm
- Kustomize
- Argo CD
- Ingress Nginx and Traefik
- cert-manager
- Horizontal Pod Autoscaler and Karpenter
- External Secrets
- Prometheus, Grafana and Loki
- Terraform
- Docker
Related expertise
Why choose Agencei?
Kubernetes only when it is justified
We will tell you if ECS, Compose or a managed platform is enough. A cluster oversized for the team costs more than it delivers.
A cluster your team can operate
Versioned manifests, GitOps deployments, documented upgrade procedures and training: the goal is autonomy, not dependency.
Secure by default
Restrictive RBAC, encrypted secrets kept out of the repository, Network Policies, scanned images and non-root execution are part of every cluster we deliver.
One-command rollback
Every Helm release is versioned and reversible. Readiness probes automatically block a faulty version before it receives any traffic.
In brief
- What is this service?
- Kubernetes consulting covering the design and provisioning of EKS or k3s clusters, Helm packaging, ingress and certificates, autoscaling, secrets management, observability and operations training.
- Who is it for?
- SaaS publishers, high-traffic platforms and teams running several containerised services, or who inherited a cluster they do not control.
- What problem does it solve?
- Achieving high availability, autoscaling and zero-downtime deployments without the cluster becoming a source of risk and uncontrolled cost.
- How long does it usually take?
- Setting up a cluster and deploying the first applications usually takes several weeks. Taking over an existing cluster depends heavily on its state.
- What factors influence the price?
- The number of services to package, the chosen distribution, high availability and security requirements, the expected observability and the level of team training.
- How does the engagement run?
- Scoping and distribution choice, Terraform provisioning, Helm charts per service, ingress and certificates, autoscaling and resilience, then observability, GitOps and training.
- What are the risks?
- Complexity out of proportion with the team, unlimited resources saturating nodes, unencrypted secrets, outdated cluster versions and poorly sized node costs.
- What alternatives exist?
- Amazon ECS Fargate, Docker Compose on a server, a PaaS platform, or serverless services when the workload is event-driven.
Frequently asked questions
Is Kubernetes suitable for a small team?
Not always. For one or two applications on a server, Docker Compose or ECS Fargate is simpler to operate. Kubernetes becomes relevant when you have several services, high availability and autoscaling needs, or existing in-house skills. k3s can be a compromise to start light.
EKS or k3s: what is the difference?
EKS is the managed Kubernetes service from AWS: the control plane is run by AWS, with native integration with IAM, load balancers and storage. k3s is a lightweight distribution that installs on any server, suited to small clusters, test environments or the edge.
How are secrets handled in Kubernetes?
Native Secret objects are encoded, not encrypted by default. We enable encryption at rest and use External Secrets to sync secrets from AWS Secrets Manager or Vault, or Sealed Secrets to store them encrypted in Git.
What happens if a deployment fails?
Rolling updates only remove the old version once the new one passes its readiness probes. If it fails, traffic keeps going to the old version and a Helm or Argo CD rollback restores the previous state within seconds.
Does the cluster need regular upgrades?
Yes. Kubernetes releases several versions a year and each version is only supported for a limited time, especially on EKS. We plan control plane and node upgrades, testing the charts against the new version beforehand.
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