“Alexa, Alexa! Create My Kubernetes Cluster” – Voice-Activated DevOps for Efficient Kubernetes Management – Predict 2025

Hi everyone. Uh, my name is Alejandro Mercado. Very honored to be here.

Um, I am going to talk about, um, this kind of new trendings now it's about predictions 2025. So let's get started. So my talk is about the, an experiment that I am making is, is a little bit about make our life easy.

I, I mean in terms of, we, we need to handle a lot of things, lot of activities, lot of consideration when dealing with, uh, in technology, um, and specifically with software development. So it's come to my mind to, to what if I can handle my, in this case, my cluster, because my Kubernetes clusters, because, well, you know, I am the Babs engineer. So, so I think this can be a good idea to, to be more productive and, and yeah, to get my job done.

So this is an introduction. We're using voice comments and virtual assistants like Alexa, I mean, can be any other assistant, but I have an Alexa to efficiently manage and deploy a Kubernetes cluster. So, a little bit about me.

I'm Alex Alejandro Mercado, uh, rides on board in Mexico City. Uh, I spend most of my time doing the Bobs and, you know, cows engineer automation related activities, observability, um, job currently living in Mexico City, uh, where I also organize the KCD. This is a little bit of topic, but, uh, call for proposal.

You want apply less, please do it. Um, and well, there's a couple of links about my, my blog where I, I write a lot of, in, of course, in Spanish and in English about technical stuff. Um, the presentation, if, if you want to download.

So I, I'm not pretty sure about to talk about predictions because you know how I don't have a crystal ball to, to predict anything. Uh, uh, I, I better will say to prospective of technology, because I mean, 20, 25 is already here. So this is for sure that this is going to happen because we are, we have, there is a, uh, a lot of strain of activity related to that.

Several topics. This is just a couple of them. I mean, it's not an extensive list.

And as I said, it is more like a prospective, i, I will better say prospective than prediction. So definitely artificial intelligence and machine learning is here. Maybe you get involved in, in these several tools.

There is a lot of folks, uh, a huge explosion of these tools to Democrats. The, the use of these two technologies. So, I mean, it, it is going to impact any, any activity in our life.

So if you're a developer, you're a tester, you are a writer, even a musician, or I dunno, all the, all the areas in, in, in our life, it's going to be impacted by artificial intelligence. So, being from the technical side, I said, well, engineer, well, this is where my, my talk is, is going to want to cover one of these aspects. So, quantum compute, quantum computing, uh, networks like 5G and beyond Blockchain, blockchain, we have been hearing about blockchain lot of years.

So we are going to see more, more cryptos, more technologies. So be aware of that because, uh, for sure there is going to be a lot of jobs, a lot of opportunities around this. Security.

Security has been always a thing, a consideration and important aspect in everything of our developments. Uh, so more people focusing in the security side is going to be required. Um, virtual reality, augment reality.

We are, uh, well, not, not just starting talking about sustainable technology. We have been talking about these, um, for several years ago, but it's, it's gaining popularity and importance because, you know, all the situations as we are facing as, um, I mean, in the whole world, it's very important to talk about this, this kind of topics. So for sure, we are going to hear more about sustainable technologies and of course, uh, remote work and keep working on color collaboration tools.

You know, from, from this c COVID-19 situation, we have been dealing with that as many others. I can imagine the work, if not remotely, but for sure, we, we are going to see another ways to interact, to communicate, to be more productive. Um, the last topic of this short list, this is my, my humble opinion, of course, uh, human computer interaction has been with us like many, many years ago.

But we are going to keep seeing, uh, innovations in human computer interactions as playing computer interfaces and advances for recognition that this is the topic of my, of this brief talk. So we will create more intuitive and ling seamless ways for humans to interact with technology. So like to handle more of my activities on the techies side.

So I would like to emphasize that we're going to see more of this voice assisted technologies, especially in, in other sector. I mean, I, I, I did that experiment because I am lazy. I just want to have just, if I am on my, in my bedroom, just to, to talk to Alexa and say, Hey, how is my, my cluster?

Or, or do I have any problem on production or development or any other environment? But, uh, when I think about other sectors of people, I mean elderly or I, I don't know, uh, talking a little bit about accessibility, we can see that this kind of technologies is going to help a lot. Uh, why or how?

Because, well, because these technologies offer significant benefits in term of health monitoring and wellness support for elderly. This is by instance, just a couple of examples. Uh, uh, if you take a look of this slide, um, voice novel technologies will assist senior sentences and professionals, um, and to adopt an environmentally sustainable solutions.

And there is a, a lot of, lot of examples that we are still developing and we are, uh, evolving this, this, these examples. But I mean, I just want to, if you want to take away from this talk, we are going to see more of these, uh, not just experiments. I, uh, I, I will better say projects around technologies like voice assistant technologies that is going to help in so many different ways that it's, that I, I mean, this is just one example.

So as a DevOps engineer dealing with software in the software development lifecycle as a business daily, it's, I, I see that, well, when I started to think about this project, I see that, well, I was not the first person in, in this world to, to think about it. So, uh, not for surprise or I see that there was a lot of, or we, we have a lot of different project related to that. I mean, it's like, once you get the something to help you with the underlying infrastructure, you can handle and manage, instead of using a keyboard, you can use your voice.

So we, I, I, I find, or you can find a lot of examples about this similar, uh, concept. So just do a quick research on internet, and you are going to find a lot of, uh, similar ideas. So I, I just, uh, I am proposing one that this is just as I said, because makes my life easier, uh, just to have this introduction to, to voice activated Kubernetes management.

So why, because, well, of course, uh, is, is scalable, is adoptable. You take a look at this slide, and I, I, I would like to say that it's not just for Accu, it's cluster. I mean, this is pretty specific for my related activities, but it can be any kind of technology.

I mean that any kind of application that it's running on the cloud, you can handle, you can manage it. So, uh, take this, uh, introductory talk, like a, like a 360 degrees view of what can we do, what is going on or what we are going to see in the next couple of years. So by leveraging the power of voice commons organization can streamline their Kubernetes management workflows, improve AccessAbility and enhance the overall efficiency of their DevOps processes.

But I mean, uh, I repeat it can be testing process processes, dev processes, uh, development, software development process. Uh, so, uh, I, I focus my, my experiment and the Kubernetes side, because some people say that Kubernetes is, is, is hard. It's tough to, to main, you know, to think the best.

Um, uh, and yeah, I, I can I agree about that, but well, you think, uh, I, I, I think that it can be, we can have better tools to, to manage this complexity. So we have been dealing with that a lot of times since you can see this, this slide. So when we started dealing with Kubernetes, uh, it implies a lot of components, a lot of situations, con connectivity, communication, networking, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So, so it's a long history around Kubernetes, and there is like an explosion of tools. If, if you take a look at the C-N-F-C-N-F-C landscape, you are going to see a huge amount of technologies around Kubernetes for different proposals to service manage, to package managers, to, to deal in, uh, different ways with the control plane data planes. Um, I, I, uh, I don't know.

I mean, there is a lot of tools for monitor and observability networking, uh, and the idea behind is to, to make things easier. But it's ironic because it's more complex. So I think that we are just reaching the top.

We, we, we are dealing with that. But I mean, this is just to have, uh, a voice assistant is just to, to have a, a different and simple way to, to handle, to manage things. So talking about not prediction, if not prospective, we are going to see a lot of, um, this, this kind of new ways to interact.

We're not so new, but we are going to interact more and more with these kind of new technologies. Um, we're going to see more, if you take a look at the final milestones of this slide, we're going to to see more web assembly for sure, uh, internal development platforms. Um, there, there, there was a, a boom of this, uh, internal development platform like backstage.

So you can expect to have more and more activity related to that. Um, this is not some well-known term that is, is bring your own cloud for sure. I'm pretty sure that this year we are going to see more about this concept.

I mean, for a lot of people it's going to be new, but, you know, it's not like a big bang. This concept had been on the, on the way. Uh, there's a lot of history behind this concept is bring your own cloud, if you want to take a look after this talk.

So, um, white Kubernetes and where the boha system, I mean this just an experiment, but as companies scale, there are Kubernetes sage, the challenges around clusters management, security and optimization become increasingly complex recurring data tools and experts when you have a, a couple of hundreds of microservices. So things are getting to start more complex to deal with. So you, you'll require, you are going to require dedicated tools and of course, expertise.

So, uh, the integration on voice controller technology with Kubernetes management has the potential to revolution at the DevOps workflow. So, and I'm talking about the, as I said, the whole DevOps workflow being a very important aspect according cluster. But I mean, you can do, uh, you can think about any other aspect of the DevOps workflow that we can handle, manage, uh, or manage with, with these technologies.

So this experiment was, um, uh, about enabling hands-free control, a real time updates. So this converse convergence and enhanced efficiency, productivity and agility in software development and deployment process. So the, the idea is was to just to talk with my Alexa, just to get the system status health to create a, a cluster to delete bots, to delete the whole cluster.

I, I mean, this is something that I can do, of course with, with the user interface or even with the, with a common, uh, but I'm mean, it, i I, if I driving or, or doing something else, I dunno, washing the dishes, uh, at the kitchen. Maybe I, I, I, I want to know if something is going wrong with my, my cluster. So, so I just can get an alarm, uh, in, in my Alexa.

Um, well, yeah, if some felt, if I, if a critical error arise because some reason, maybe I just want to know about it. I mean, I don't want Alexa to, to keep, uh, I don't want to keep getting messages from Alexa every, every minute or two minutes. No, but thinking about critical or fat errors, I mean, I, I just want to know about it.

So I I can, yeah, I mean, if, if I'm not in front of the computer, I can have even notifications on my, on my, on my, on my cell phone or, or me Alexa device. So, so the, the, this project can, can you go further to get more details on the pops? On the lots on, yeah, it is, uh, a work in progress, but that's, uh, the, the idea just to observe my, my, my whole Kubernetes infra.

So, and, and, well, I, I think that Alexa is just one of the, the options that you have on the market, but I mean, it's the same for other assistants. Uh, just because I have one Alexa, it is what I have, uh, it's handy to me to, to make this experiment, uh, in my house. But I mean, uh, it's not just Alexa.

It can be any other, uh, voice assistant. I just want to clarify that. Um, and there is a lot of benefits, uh, having and this kind of new approaches to handle and manage infra, uh, I mean, it is in a early stage, but definitely where I want to see more of these kind of projects, uh, to increase, reduce errors, to be aware of what is going on in my infra, I think is it's like, um, uh, important point.

Yeah. So accessibility, you have some, I know elderly people or with some visual problems, maybe this is going to be a, a great help, uh, streamline workflows, contextual awareness. So I can ask my, my Alexa, uh, like this experiment propose, Hey, Alexa, tell me the, the, the held about my microservice or, or which microservice, uh, uh, has the, the lower latency just to say something so I can have an idea.

Of course, it's, it's not about to solve the problem, just interact. It, it, it, it is, we are not in that pot yet. But, uh, to be, uh, aware of what is going on, just to, once you are in front of your computer, you, you can have like a, a solid clue or way to go.

So, uh, this is like real go use cases. So infrastructure automation, IT operations has free control in manufacturing, emergency response coordination, leading to remote site administration, that this is something that is, we are not too, too far from that. So the experiment, so a couple of years ago I started to think about it because I, I use my voice assistant a lot, you know, to, to several things.

Uh, so, so my idea was to, in, in, in a conversation that I had with other colleagues, uh, we have this idea of what if we can handle it when I, I am driving commun or commuting to work, or when we have friends, I, I mean, doing something else. So it, it'll be at the beginning with basic stuff, and you can do more advances activities, uh, with more experience. But because, I mean, it's not that easy, not just to set up or to create accord.

Clusters implies a lot of considerations. So it is not that easy just to say, Hey, Alexa, create my cluster. That, that I, I started to think about it that, so through this journey, I realized that it was not that easy and there is a lot of consideration.

So, well, uh, this is a very brief diagram of the architecture of my system is, is you are going to see, suggest a lot of lambdas, and, and as you can see it is running on AWS just because, I mean, it's, it's not tied to, to AWS you can use Azure or Google Cloud or any other cloud provider. I mean, but, uh, the idea is, is the same. We have a lot of functions that call, you know, this interface between the land Alexa skill and the, and the functions.

So once we, we accomplish the first thing, I mean, to create something, you can create anything on the, on the cloud. I mean, it, it is like the same concept. So, so I started to, to create A-A-B-P-C as subnet, and of course the, the, the, the elastic Bernet cluster, uh, the, the ESKS, so a, a lot of per permissions policies, et cetera, et cetera.

So, so, but the, the idea behind is, is it's like the can be extrapolated to do a lot of things. I mean, to manage the whole, anything that you can do in in AWS you, you can do it with this idea. So the idea is to end this call of having a voice interface to handle everything that you want.

So is that the functions are so dynamic. I mean, my, my voice interaction is, is so dynamic that I can do anything, but I mean, to achieve that is, is going to take a lot of time because there is a lot of services, a lot of considerations, a lot of configurations, a lot of dependencies. So in this journey, I realized that, but I, I just wanted to, to focus on a Kubernetes cluster because did you ask me about to do something else?

Well, of course, it, it can be achievable, but it's going to take a while until the, the, the voice interface is enough smart to handle all the requirements, but we are not in that bond yet. I mean, maybe, maybe in a couple of years, uh, this is the, the, the experiment. Um, I, I can do a, a, a real demo, but, uh, it's going to take a lot of time, you know, to create a, a Kubernetes cluster can take like 15 or 20 minutes, so it's going to take a long, too long to, to have the, the cluster running.

So it, this is just like a couple of images, uh, about the, the test, the test that I did to deploy the Kubernetes cluster. So I have this voice comment to open, um, my, my Alexa skills name is Bernet manager. So, so I can deploy a cluster, I can delete a cluster, I can monitor the cluster it, and in, in the, in the arena of monitoring and observability is where I see more opportunities because, you know, to, to create a cluster takes a lot of considerations, but I mean, it's not that easy and you have to be pretty sure you have lot of, lot of Jamal files with, with manifests to be pretty sure that e everything is going to, to be up running.

So I started to think that, well, maybe it not a pretty good idea. I used to create the, the cluster with the voice comment, but I think that for monitoring and observe and have like a real time status check, uh, to see if there is any cluster health issues, I mean, it, it's going to be pretty handy. So in, i, i, I don't want to talk a lot about the technical aspect, uh, because there is a record that I'm going to show in the next slide, but well, it's about the interaction model.

So that's the way that the Alexa skill, uh, works. You have to define the, the, the intent. So this, this is like in more, in the more technical side.

So if you are curious about it, you can take, um, uh, a look of that in, in this repo. But, uh, the, all the magic, all the heavy stuff is done through Terraform. I mean, we can use another technology for infra code, but, well, I, I have experience with Terraform, so, so that's the way that I, I, I deal with the, the whole heavy lifting.

So the Alexa skill is, is calling, uh, some lands and the lands are calling the, the, the, the Terraform stuff. So yeah, this way I can achieve, I, and, and I can say anything that you can achieve with this kind of tools like Terraform, pluming, uh, A-W-S-C-D-K, I mean, you can do everything. I mean in the cloud, any resource, any object, any configuration that's possible.

It's just like adding to the interface. So, oh, well, this is, uh, just, uh, you have never heard about infra code. It's like, uh, this way to handle infra this new way, not, not a new, but, uh, it is the process of managing and provision and computer data centers through machine readable definition files.

It's all about definition files. So there are, as I said, there are a lot of options in the market, open source and legacy. So, uh, again, it's not tied to Terraform.

Well, my idea is not to tie to any, any, any particular technology. Uh, Terraform is agnostic to the cloud, so it can be this easily, uh, we can do an easy immigration to other clouds like Google, Azure, Alibaba, anything that you have in mind, we, we can just adjust this, this, this project. So, well, that's my idea to, to get or to reach a point on the near future to have this voice interface, to handle any kind of, of technology, not just the Kubernetes cluster.

But I think that this is possible achievable, and it's going to be, uh, pretty handy and we are going to be more productive in, in, in terms of our, I mean, talking about my, my side engineer side. Uh, I, I would like to have an interface like that, definitely. So thank you very much.

Uh, uh, I'm going to be around here. If you have any question, comment, please be, be my guest. Um, please reach me or contact company, uh, my LinkedIn profile, the information is right on this at the bottom of this slide.

So, yeah, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure and have a nice and happy 2025.