In this session, we are going to describe the relative differences between Helm and the Operator SDK. We will then demonstrate how you can easily leverage both to get the best of both worlds and better automate your workloads on top of Kubernetes and OpenShift.

1. Why not both?
Product Manager
Daniel Messer
Helm or Operators
1

2. Who am I?
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● Product Manager for Operator Framework,
OperatorHub.io and Quay
● With Operators since 2019
● Red Hatter since 2014
● Father since 7 months
● With Linux since Fedora Core 2
● Geek since forever
?

3. You probably had this too...
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Helm
Operator

4. 4

5. What Helm is
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Helm is a package manager for
Kubernetes applications
define, install and update apps

6. How Helm works
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User Chart Helm (cli) Kubernetes Objects
Kubernetes Cluster
Helm Repository

7. What Helm does
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Kubernetes
Resources
Helm Chart
(templates)
Values
(configs)
Helm Library
Secret
(release object)

8. What Helm does
8
Kubernetes
Resources
Helm Chart
(templates)
Values
(configs)
Helm Library
Secret
(release object)
Release

9. 9

10. This works well for...
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● Stateless Applications
● Workloads with no Day-2 Operations
● Installation and Updates can entirely be
done via onboard Kubernetes features
● Update procedures don’t need to consider
the internal state of the app
● Dev Environments
● Clusters where you are cluster-admin
This does not address...
● Stateful Applications
● Workloads with Day-2 Operations (backup,
restore, failover, failback)
● Additional orchestration required post
install or during upgrades or
reconfiguration
● Long-lived workloads in multi-tenant
environments
● Clusters where you are not cluster-admin

11. What an Operator is
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Operators are operational
procedures and best practices
codified in software
Install and manage apps like a cloud-service but
running in your cluster

12. How Operators work
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Embed ops
knowledge from
the experts
Operator v1.1.2 Deployments
StatefulSets
Autoscalers
Jobs
ConfigMaps

13. How Operators work
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Embed ops
knowledge from
the experts
Operator v1.1.2 Deployments
StatefulSets
Autoscalers
Jobs
ConfigMaps
Installation, Update, Backup, Restore, Reconfiguration,
Metrics-based scaling, Auto-Healing, Failover, Failback,
Orchestrated Upgrades...

14. What Operators do
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Custom Resource
User
Deployments
StatefulSets
Autoscalers
Secrets
ConfigMaps
PersistentVolume
K8s API / kubectl
kind: ProductionReadyDatabase
apiVersion: database.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
name: my-important-database
spec:
connectionPoolSize: 300
readReplicas: 2
version: v4.0.1
Custom Kubernetes
Controller
Watch Events
Software Loop
+
Custom Resource Definition
Kubernetes Operator Native Kubernetes
Resources

15. ● Static deployments
● One-off installs
● Application runtimes, Frameworks
This works well for...
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This is overkill for...
● Stateful Applications
● Workloads with Day-2 Operations (backup,
restore, failover, failback)
● Additional orchestration post install or
during upgrades or reconfiguration
● Long-lived workloads in multi-tenant
environments
● Clusters where you are not cluster-admin

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17. What Helm Operator does
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Container Build
Tomcat Chart
chart.yaml
Operator Container
v1.2.7 chart Tomcat Object
apiVersion: apache.org/v1
kind: Tomcat
metadata:
name: prod-1.2.7
namespace: production
spec:
replicaCount: 10
maxActiveSessions: 1000
Running Operator
v1.2.7
$ kubectl get Tomcats --all-namespaces
NAMESPACE NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
production prod-1.2.7 1/1 Running 0 4d
staging staging-v1.2.8 1/1 Running 1 2h

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19. Summary
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● Helm is excellent at templating and generating Kubernetes resources
● Operators are excellent at keeping things in sync and provide a native familiar experience
● Helm Operators allow to get the best of both worlds
● Helm Operators can be created without writing a single line of code using the Operator SDK
● Find out more at: https://sdk.operatorframework.io/