Carlos Nunez

You don’t need more tools. You need a source of truth. Most Kubernetes setups look like this: - Terraform for infra - Helm for apps - Bash scripts to glue it together - Dashboards to figure out when it breaks And somehow… it still drifts. It still surprises you. It still doesn’t behave the way you expect. At Syself, we took a different approach: We don’t configure clusters. We declare them. Every cluster — from OS to kubelet to storage to autoscaling — is defined as code. That’s not just YAML. It’s a declarative, versioned, Git-trackable definition of: - What infrastructure should exist - How it should behave under failure - How it should scale, update, and recover - What “healthy” actually means No scripts. No manual steps. No guessing. When something changes? You change the declaration — not the system. And because it’s built on Kubernetes-native APIs, you manage your clusters like you manage your apps: Declaratively. Predictably. At scale. It’s not just infrastructure-as-code. It’s infrastructure-as-software. And once you experience it, you won’t go back. Curious how that looks in action? syself.com/hetzner

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🚀 Bare metal is making a serious comeback, especially for Kubernetes! But when is ditching the VMs for raw hardware really the right move for your K8s clusters? 🤔 It's a hot topic, and many are surprised by the clear advantages in specific scenarios. If you're nodding along, here’s a quick breakdown: 🎯 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻: → 𝗠𝗮𝘅𝗶𝗺𝘂𝗺 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝘁: Direct hardware access means minimal hypervisor overhead and no noisy neighbors hogging resources. Your critical tasks get full infrastructure capacity. → 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗡𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗟𝗼𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮 𝗙𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Got specialized, too new, or too old hardware? Bare metal handles it. Access different kernels and fully leverage unique hardware capabilities (like specific network cards) → 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗪𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗙𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆: Single tenancy reduces the attack surface. No hypervisor vulnerabilities to worry about, plus you control kernel updates, encryption, and can use hardening frameworks like SELinux/AppArmor. → 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗡𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝘅𝗶𝗺𝘂𝗺 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲: Fewer abstractions mean better network speeds. Tools like CNI, flannel, and Calico make setup and routing smoother, and troubleshooting is often simpler. → 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗪𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀: Optimal resource utilization and predictable scaling costs can lead to significant savings-up to 30% TCO reduction in some cases! Plus, no hypervisor licensing fees. 🚧 𝗕𝘂𝘁, 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗔𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗦𝗺𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀: → 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁𝘆: Forget "click-and-go." Provisioning, updates, networking, DNS, storage, and scaling are all on you. OS patching and certificate management? Your responsibility. → 𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱: The "blank slate" can be daunting. Choosing and ensuring compatibility for OS, interfaces, and hardening solutions requires careful planning and dedicated team resources. Choosing bare metal for K8s isn't a decision to take lightly, but for the right workloads, the benefits are undeniable! Learn more in my post here: https://lnkd.in/gqFduUsN

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ClickHouse doesn't have built-in schema migration support. In 2026. For a database used in production by thousands of companies. https://lnkd.in/gCU-4Fry That's not a niche edge case. Schema changes are one of the most common operations in any production database. And in ClickHouse, what looks like a simple column addition can trigger a full table rewrite when you're streaming hundreds of megabytes per second. Tinybird's own migration story is telling. Their first approach to handling materialized view changes was, in their words, "bulletproof but brutally inefficient." Touch just one materialized view and you'd migrate terabytes of upstream data. For a 14TB Kafka table, that meant days-long deployments. Every database has tradeoffs. ClickHouse is genuinely fast for narrow analytical queries. But if your workload evolves (and it will), the operational cost of that evolution is worth understanding before you're 14TB deep. What's the most painful schema migration you've dealt with?

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Infrastructure challenges only get harder after deployment. That's where Terraform actions bring real value. By standardizing more of your Day 2 workflows within the Terraform pipeline, you can confidently manage infrastructure over time without the manual overhead. A perfect example? Pairing Ansible with Terraform actions for seamless, automated infrastructure and configuration management. Ready to transform how you operate? https://bit.ly/3WKwCk6

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