Kubernetes Consulting & Migration

Production-Ready Kubernetes Without the Headaches

Kubernetes is powerful but complex. A misconfigured cluster becomes a source of outages, cost overruns, and operational burden. A well-architected platform becomes your competitive advantage—enabling your engineers to ship features faster and infrastructure to scale gracefully.

Sharper Cloud designs, builds, and optimizes Kubernetes platforms for companies at every stage. Whether you’re migrating your first workload to K8s or overhauling an existing cluster, we ensure your platform is production-ready, cost-efficient, and maintainable by your team.

The Problem: Kubernetes Complexity Derails Teams

You know Kubernetes would help your team ship faster, but the complexity is daunting:

  • Default Kubernetes configurations are resource-hungry and expensive
  • Misconfigurations lead to security vulnerabilities and unexpected outages
  • Running Kubernetes requires new operational skills your team may not have
  • Migrating workloads from VMs or Docker Swarm involves risks of downtime and data loss
  • Manual kubectl deployments are unreliable and don’t scale across environments
  • Lack of observability means problems surface when users are affected, not before

Most teams end up either over-engineering their cluster (buying all the add-ons) or under-engineering it (missing critical observability and security). Neither option is good.

Our Solution: Kubernetes Architecture + GitOps + Knowledge Transfer

We deliver production Kubernetes platforms that your team can actually operate:

Cluster Architecture & Setup

  • Kubernetes distribution selection (EKS, GKE, k0s, self-hosted) based on your requirements
  • Network architecture with proper segmentation
  • Storage strategy (persistent volumes, snapshots, multi-region replication)
  • Identity and access control (RBAC, service accounts, pod security)
  • Resource requests/limits tuned for cost efficiency
  • Auto-scaling configured for your workload patterns

GitOps & Deployment

  • GitOps workflows with ArgoCD or FluxCD
  • Helm chart development for your applications
  • Environment promotion (dev → staging → production)
  • Policy enforcement (network policies, pod security policies, resource quotas)
  • Progressive deployment strategies (blue-green, canary)

Observability & Reliability

  • Prometheus + Grafana monitoring stack deployment
  • Logging with Loki or Filebeat/Elasticsearch
  • Alerting that catches issues before users do
  • SLO/SLI implementation and tracking
  • Incident response automation

Migrations & Modernization

  • Assessment of existing workloads for containerization
  • Containerization and Kubernetes readiness evaluation
  • Zero-downtime migrations from EC2, Docker Swarm, or other platforms
  • Data migration strategies (databases, persistent storage)
  • Cutover planning and rollback procedures

Scope of Work: What’s Included

Kubernetes Cluster Design & Deployment

  • Cluster architecture assessment and recommendations
  • Kubernetes distribution selection and justification
  • Network design (CNI selection, network policies)
  • Storage strategy and persistent volume configuration
  • Security hardening and RBAC implementation
  • Cost optimization (resource requests, node sizing, scaling)

Application Modernization

  • Containerization of existing applications where needed
  • Helm chart development and templating
  • Configuration management (ConfigMaps, Secrets)
  • Dependency and service discovery setup

GitOps Implementation

  • ArgoCD or FluxCD deployment and configuration
  • Git repository structure and best practices
  • Environment promotion workflows
  • Policy enforcement and approval gates
  • Training for your team on GitOps workflows

Observability Stack

  • Prometheus + Grafana deployment and configuration
  • Custom dashboards for your services and infrastructure
  • Alerting rules and notification integrations
  • Logging infrastructure (Loki, ELK, or equivalent)
  • SLO and SLI implementation

Knowledge Transfer & Documentation

  • Training for your team on cluster operations
  • Runbooks for common operations and troubleshooting
  • Documentation of architecture decisions and rationale
  • Handoff to your team for ongoing operations

Tools & Technologies

Kubernetes Distributions: AWS EKS, Google GKE, k0s, kubeadm, self-hosted options

Container Runtimes: containerd, Docker

Container Orchestration: Kubernetes core, Helm for package management

Networking: Flannel, Calico, Cilium (CNI options), Istio or Linkerd (service mesh optional)

GitOps: ArgoCD, FluxCD

Storage: Persistent Volume provisioners, etcd backups, snapshot management

Monitoring: Prometheus, Grafana, AlertManager

Logging: Loki, Filebeat, Elasticsearch, or CloudWatch/Stackdriver

Security: Pod Security Standards, Network Policies, RBAC, secrets management (Sealed Secrets, Vault)

Why Sharper Cloud for Kubernetes

Justin Sharp has:

  • Built production Kubernetes clusters serving millions of requests per day
  • Architected high-availability multi-region K8s platforms
  • Migrated 100+ microservices from monolithic infrastructure to Kubernetes
  • Implemented GitOps and declarative infrastructure at scale
  • Led platform engineering teams at companies including Weave (IPO 2021)

He focuses on practical, boring Kubernetes—platforms that scale without breaking and that your team can operate without a dedicated platform engineering team of 5 people.

Typical Engagement Results

  • Production-ready cluster deployed within 4 weeks
  • 20-30% cost savings through proper resource sizing and optimization
  • GitOps workflows enabling safe, fast deployments
  • Complete observability so problems are caught before users are affected
  • Zero-downtime migrations from existing infrastructure
  • Your team trained to operate the cluster independently
  • Migration risks minimized through careful planning and testing

Real example: We migrated a company from EC2 monoliths to Kubernetes, containerizing 12 services with zero production downtime. The new platform reduced monthly infrastructure costs by 28% while improving deployment frequency from weekly to 10x daily.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should we use managed Kubernetes (EKS/GKE) or self-hosted?

Managed Kubernetes (EKS, GKE) is almost always the right choice for most teams. You avoid the operational burden of managing control plane upgrades and security patches. Self-hosted K8s is only worthwhile if you have very specific requirements or multi-cloud needs. We'll help you evaluate based on your actual constraints.

How long does it take to migrate to Kubernetes?

The initial cluster setup takes 2-4 weeks. Application containerization and migration depends on your application complexity. Simple stateless services can migrate in days. Complex stateful applications with databases take longer. We typically work with you on a phased rollout where you migrate services incrementally while maintaining the old infrastructure.

Will migrating to Kubernetes require downtime?

No. We use proven techniques to migrate workloads to Kubernetes without downtime. New services receive traffic through a load balancer while old infrastructure continues to serve requests. Traffic gradually shifts to Kubernetes over hours or days. Cutover is carefully planned and tested.

How much will Kubernetes cost compared to EC2?

Done right, Kubernetes is typically 20-40% cheaper than equivalent EC2 infrastructure, thanks to better bin-packing and automated scaling. Done wrong, it can be more expensive. We right-size your cluster from the start and implement cost monitoring to catch waste.

Is Kubernetes overkill for our company?

Probably not. If you have more than a handful of services, or if deployment frequency is more than weekly, Kubernetes pays for itself through developer productivity gains alone. Even small teams benefit from the operational consistency and scalability K8s provides.

Ready to Modernize Your Infrastructure?

Kubernetes done right becomes your competitive advantage. Let’s build a platform that scales with your business and your team.

Book a Free 30-Minute Consultation to discuss your current infrastructure, evaluate your Kubernetes readiness, and plan a migration strategy.

Related services: See our Cloud Infrastructure service for underlying infrastructure architecture, CI/CD Automation for deployment pipelines, or Monitoring & Observability for comprehensive K8s observability.