Our Insights

Manual network configurations slow innovation, increase security risks, and drive up costs. Errors in IP management, firewalls, and cloud setups lead to outages, breaches, and inefficiencies. Automation is the solution—scalable, secure, and programmatic networking will free teams from repetitive tasks and costly mistakes.

Kubernetes minimizes the use of NAT by default, enabling direct Pod-to-Pod communication via a flat network topology, but employs NAT selectively for scenarios like NodePort services, egress traffic, and overlay networks, depending on the cluster’s setup and CNI plugin.

Kubernetes simplifies deployment but makes networking complex. Unlike traditional networks, pods have ephemeral IPs, need seamless cross-node communication, and require dynamic security policies. Kubernetes services abstract pod networking, but challenges like multi-node routing, load balancing, and security policies make container networking a tough puzzle.

While compute and storage are fully automated, networking still requires manual setup across cloud providers. A programmatic networking approach would enable on-demand, scalable, and secure network configurations, just like compute and storage.

Unlike compute and storage, networking remains complex due to its reliance on outdated, public-first protocols. Attempts to secure private networking with layers of configuration have only added complexity. To evolve, networking must become zero-configuration, identity-based, and self-healing, eliminating manual setup entirely.