By now, you must have stumbled upon the terms "Platform Engineering" and "Internal Developer Platform". And I am not surprised by this. Helping developers to be more productive by offering a gated and supported way to self-serve their infrastructure needs is a key aspect of Platform Engineering. And as a result, an agile and efficient organization.

Let's take this idea to the next level. What if we build a Kubernetes Cluster Vending Machine with cost-efficiency baked in? Join me to learn how open-source tools like Backstage, vCluster, Kyverno, Pulumi, and Argo CD can help build an efficient and cost-effective Kubernetes Cluster Vending Machine platform.

I will show you how to set up vCluster, next to real Kubernetes clusters, in a hub-and-spoke model in Argo CD. This will help reduce the cost of Kubernetes clusters for non-production workloads. Additionally, we will create a GitOps pipeline with Argo CD to deploy workloads to different clusters. Everything will be done using IaC in languages like TypeScript, and Backstage for offering different software templates for users to choose from.

Takeaways

- Learn how to build a Kubernetes Cluster Vending Machine using state-of-the-art open-source tools.

- Discover how to define and standardize cloud infrastructure and Kubernetes resources through a single workflow in languages like Python, Go, TypeScript, .NET, Java, and YAML.

- Understand how to automate continuous delivery and verification of changes using Argo CD GitOps with Pulumi.

- Explore how to build self-service enabled software templates in Backstage.