The Rafay Platform

My company acts as a system integrator, providing services to any company. For instance, if a company wants to upgrade their OpenShift, such as from version 4.16, they come to us, and we provide them service, taking full access to perform the upgrade.

One thing I personally appreciate about Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform is that it is open source, so we do not need to pay anything to any vendor or anyone. Additionally, it serves as an orchestration tool that allows automatic scaling of applications with more traffic using horizontal pod auto-scaler or vertical pod auto-scaler, and we can also add a load balancer.

I find it beneficial to use Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform, as previously mentioned, Kubernetes is open source. The only requirement is that your Linux machine needs licenses, but you can also use the free open-source Linux OS, which is free of cost.

I have noticed a weak side in Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform as Kubernetes does not have any single dashboard point, requiring manual deployment, whereas OpenShift has their own console, which is something Kubernetes should improve.

My thoughts about the intuitive dashboard are that while Kubernetes doesn't have a default dashboard, you can deploy one. For example, I will create the service account, role binding, and all that, and you can access the dashboard through it. Although the CLI is a little bit complicated, the dashboard is easy to access.

I have been working with Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform for a total of two years, which means I have actual production knowledge of two years, and prior to that, I took training for six months with a Red Hat partner.

Regarding deployment of Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform, it is not actually difficult to implement. We first do it in our lab only and after that, we do it on the client's side. We do most of the troubleshooting in our lab only first, and then we implement it on the customer's side.

As for the purchasing process of Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform, some clients purchase it through AWS, while others give us the on-prem bare metal platform or provide us with the VMware platform. It is totally up to the customer.

In terms of implementation time for Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform, if we have a fully disconnected installation, we typically need approximately 25 days minimum.

Usually, two to three people are involved in the implementation process from my side.

I have not worked with the policy enforcement feature of this product. I would rate this product at 8.5 out of 10.

On-premises

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

I use Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform for multi-cluster management, centralized cluster monitoring, and user access management in my day-to-day work.

As I manage multiple clusters working on different platforms such as OCP and EKP, I manage them from a single platform using Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform.

My main use case focuses on application deployment automation.

The best features of Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform are the centralized multi-cluster management, built-in RBAC policy for managing role-based access control, cluster lifecycle management, multi-cloud and hybrid cloud support, and centralized monitoring.

Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform's RBAC policy helps my team by giving each user specific roles for managing the cluster, which makes RBAC integration easier and ensures that users do not have access to all clusters, thereby increasing security.

The multi-cloud support stands out for me as it supports different cloud environments on a single platform, including Azure, AWS, and GCP clusters, which helps me manage clusters working on different platforms.

Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform should have lower licensing costs for smaller organizations like mine, and it could integrate third-party tools as well.

I chose a rating of eight out of ten because of the improvements required regarding licensing costs and the integration of third-party tools.

I have been using Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform for about a year.

Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform is stable.

Scalability is one of the great features of Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform as it supports large environments, multi-cloud deployment, and thousands of workloads for different users.

Customer support for Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform is responsive, and the support team demonstrates strong Kubernetes expertise and helps with deployment, operational, and troubleshooting issues.

Previously, we were using native Kubernetes management, bare metal clusters, and OpenShift, but due to higher costs, we switched to Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform.

Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform simplifies Kubernetes operations, improves security with RBAC, and reduces operational downtime.

Time was saved because from the single platform, I can manage clusters working on different platforms such as hybrid cloud or multi-cloud platforms, making systems ready and reducing downtime. With that, cluster lifecycle management improved.

We are a reseller and service provider for this vendor.

I have seen a return on investment, with key benefits including fast deployment cycles, improvement in security and management, reduced downtime, and improved time spent on cluster management.

My experience with pricing shows that Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform is an enterprise platform, so the licensing cost is somewhat higher than other Kubernetes tools. However, it has a small setup cost and centralized management capacity, which justifies the investment for the multi-cluster setup.

We evaluated Rancher and VMware Tanzu before choosing Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform.

I would rate Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform eight out of ten.

I advise others who are looking into using Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform that if they want to manage multiple Kubernetes clusters running on different platforms such as cloud or on-premise environments, they can adopt Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform for long-term operational benefits.

Hybrid Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

The product that I'm working on requires testing on different Kubernetes clusters, and the major ones we have are AWS, GCP, AKS, DigitalOcean, and some others as well. Earlier, we had to go on every cluster to get access, manage, and test for different clusters for our product, but as soon as we started using Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform, it provided us with a single dashboard with multi-cluster support for different platforms, making it really helpful because the hassle is gone now. We don't need to worry about different clusters as we have a single dashboard.

In our case, we manage multiple public clouds where we create our Kubernetes clusters such as GCP, AKS, and AWS. We found Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform to be a very useful platform for managing all those clusters because it provides us with a single dashboard through which we can manage all the different Kubernetes clusters that we have.

The best feature I will mention of Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform is the centralized multi-cluster management feature, which allows us not to worry about accessing different clusters, as it provides us with a single interface through which we can manage all the different users, namespaces, and cluster resources. This is what I and my team love working with because we don't have to worry about the different clusters that we are working with.

The central multi-cluster management feature saves us time because earlier we used to create a ticket for access to different cloud providers, which took time to get access, but with Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform, we have multi-cluster support that makes it really easy for our team and saves our time.

The GitOps flow that Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform has is something I'm looking into. I haven't extensively used that aspect, but there's discussion in my team about using their GitOps flow to onboard different new clusters, so I'm still researching that area and seeing how we can use it in our use case.

Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform has positively impacted our organization by increasing overall productivity as a team because we are a big team with many people working on Kubernetes clusters on different public clouds. Earlier it was a hassle for the DevOps team since they had to manage all the cluster access, but with Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform, it has really improved our productivity, allowing us to do many things ourselves since the admin provides a single access for specific areas.

From a normal point of view, most things are good with Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform, but I think there is a bit of a learning curve for new users unfamiliar with the platform, as it sometimes takes time to understand what exactly we are doing there and how everything works.

The onboarding part and documentation of Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform can be improved because new persons in my team sometimes feel that the documentation requires some time to understand. While it's not messy, there is definitely a learning curve there.

I have been using Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform for the last one year.

Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform is stable.

The scalability of Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform is good. Whatever we have used till now is really helpful for us, and we can use it as expected.

We haven't had any issues with the customer support of Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform. Aside from the documentation aspect, we didn't require to connect with them.

We didn't use any specific solution before. We were just using the normal cluster setup across different clusters, and eventually, after learning about Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform, we switched to using it.

Before choosing Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform, I would say we did not evaluate other options. We had multiple clusters earlier, and once we learned of Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform, we started using it and loved it, which is why we continue using it without looking into other options.

In our case, we have seen a return on investment, particularly in terms of time saved, as we resolved the ticketing issue and related problems.

I would advise individuals looking into using Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform that if they use multiple clusters in their organization or multiple public cloud providers and want to avoid the hassle of managing all those clusters, then they should definitely use Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform. I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.

Public Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

What do you like best about the product?

ease and speed of deployment and management

What do you dislike about the product?

None, we are statisfied and happy with the current capabilities

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

How it make it easier for our team with operational activities from the entire EKS cluster fleet perspective. (Currently 80+ clusters)
- RBAC model for cluster access to different user groups
- New AMI version rollout, version upgrades with vulnerability management
- Addon and blueprint lifecycle management
- Ability to manage the entire cluster through a specfile driven approach which enables us to use the Rafay Gitops capabilities for most of our operational tasks.

- From developers perspective console gives easy access to see the cluster resources, logs and execution of commands without knowing the kubectl commands. We have seen new development teams utilizing and adopting Rafay for their day to day work
- Support has been great from Rafay and they have been accommodating our requirements and support aspects has been addressed promptly which has allowed us to build a great relationship with Rafay team
n of glass, speed of deployment, and ease of cluster management

What do you like best about the product?

The Cntrol plane which is provided b rafay helps us in beter managing our k8's

What do you dislike about the product?

Nothing so far been working with rafay o a while now

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

It helps us in better fleet managment

What do you like best about the product?

Rafay cluster resources management - one place to manage all the kuberentes clusters that are part of the organization
Rafay Blueprint concept
Kubernetes Upgrade process
RBAC management
Kubernetes cluster observability management
Rafay Kubernetes technical support

What do you dislike about the product?

As of today, there are some exceptions in using the rafay features which are very useful but cannot be used because they only work well with the resources created through rafay and don't support what isn't created through rafay. Once the features start supporting the importing of the existing resources, it becomes even more valuable than it already is.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Kubernetes cluster resources management
Installation/management of the workloads that are common across the Kubernetes clusters through rafay blueprint
Kubernetes Upgrade process
RBAC management