Noaa Barki

What we Learned from Reading 100+ Kubernetes Post-Mortems

What's the #1 cause of Kubernetes outages? After analyzing over 100 post-mortems, the answer is surprisingly simple—and completely preventable.

What we Learned from Reading 100+ Kubernetes Post-Mortems
#1about 6 minutes

Understanding the developer versus DevOps cultural divide

A story from a DevOps meetup illustrates the different goals and perspectives that create friction between developers and operations teams.

#2about 2 minutes

Bridge the gap with champions and failure stories

Delegate knowledge to developer champions and learn best practices by studying the post-mortem stories of other companies.

#3about 5 minutes

Common Kubernetes misconfigurations from real outages

Examples from Target and Zalando show how simple errors like incorrect CronJob concurrency policies or missing memory limits can cause major production failures.

#4about 3 minutes

How to introduce policy enforcement gradually

Avoid organizational friction by implementing new policies slowly, starting with a single pilot team to gain agreement and understanding before a wider rollout.

#5about 3 minutes

Categorizing the three types of Kubernetes failures

Kubernetes failures typically fall into three categories: simple syntax errors, gaps in knowledge of best practices, and misalignment with internal company policies.

#6about 2 minutes

Validating Kubernetes YAML for syntax and schema errors

Use tools like yq for YAML format validation and kubeconform for schema validation without requiring direct cluster access for developers.

#7about 4 minutes

The challenges of managing policies as code in Git

Managing policies in Git creates versioning nightmares and lacks features for permissions, dynamic adjustments, and providing clear remediation guidelines.

#8about 4 minutes

Using Datree for centralized policy management

Datree is an open-source tool that provides a centralized location for managing policies, which are then enforced locally and in CI for developers.

#9about 1 minute

The real meaning of shifting responsibility left

True shift-left culture is not just about tools but about delegating responsibility and empowering developers to own their configurations.

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Matching moments

Organizing a developer conference for 15,000 attendees
01:32 MIN

Organizing a developer conference for 15,000 attendees

Cat Herding with Lions and Tigers - Christian Heilmann

Increasing the value of talk recordings post-event
04:57 MIN

Increasing the value of talk recordings post-event

Cat Herding with Lions and Tigers - Christian Heilmann

Using content channels to build an event community
04:49 MIN

Using content channels to build an event community

Cat Herding with Lions and Tigers - Christian Heilmann

Selecting strategic partners and essential event tools
03:17 MIN

Selecting strategic partners and essential event tools

Cat Herding with Lions and Tigers - Christian Heilmann

Developing resilience by expanding your capacity for failure
04:57 MIN

Developing resilience by expanding your capacity for failure

What 2025 Taught Us: A Year-End Special with Hung Lee

Balancing the trade-off between efficiency and resilience
03:38 MIN

Balancing the trade-off between efficiency and resilience

What 2025 Taught Us: A Year-End Special with Hung Lee

Why HR struggles with technology implementation and adoption
04:22 MIN

Why HR struggles with technology implementation and adoption

What 2025 Taught Us: A Year-End Special with Hung Lee

Rapid-fire thoughts on the future of work
02:44 MIN

Rapid-fire thoughts on the future of work

What 2025 Taught Us: A Year-End Special with Hung Lee

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