QingCloud boosted performance and networking with Cilium
Challenge
QingCloud Technologies Corp., a prominent cloud computing company based in China, provides a comprehensive range of cloud services—including computing, storage, networking, and container solutions—to various industries such as finance, healthcare, and education. The company is also the initiator and primary maintainer of the open-source project KubeSphere, a powerful platform that extends Kubernetes capabilities.
As a service provider catering to a diverse clientele with unique requirements, QingCloud faced the challenge of balancing cutting-edge cloud native technologies with the stability, security, and usability that their clients demand. They needed to offer advanced networking features, such as multi-cluster management and high performance while ensuring cost-efficiency and alignment with customer needs. Additionally, they aimed to stay competitive in the rapidly evolving cloud native landscape by integrating innovative solutions without compromising reliability.
Solution
To address these challenges, QingCloud integrated Cilium powered by eBPF, into their KubeSphere platform and deployment tool KubeKey. Starting in 2019, the team recognized Cilium’s high performance and began monitoring its development. By 2020, responding to community and customer requests, they added support for Cilium in KubeKey, allowing users to deploy Kubernetes clusters with Cilium seamlessly.
Impact
Integrating Cilium into QingCloud’s offerings had a significant positive impact on both the company and its clients. QingCloud enhanced performance and networking capabilities by leveraging eBPF through Cilium, meeting the demands of clients requiring high-speed networking solutions. This integration also allowed them to attract new customer segments, particularly startups and tech-forward companies seeking cutting-edge networking solutions. Incorporating Cilium’s advanced capabilities kept QingCloud at the forefront of cloud native technology providers in China, and the ease of deploying Cilium through KubeKey improved the user experience for both QingCloud’s team and their customers.
Projects used
By the numbers
15k+
KubeSphere GitHub Stars
5 Million +
Downloads of KubeSphere
100+
Countries where KubeSphere is used
Implementing Cilium for Superior Cloud Native Networking
QingCloud’s journey with Cilium began in 2019 when their team noticed the project and recognized its superior networking performance over similar CNI solutions.
“In 2019, some of our customers raised the requirement to us of integrating Cilium into our enterprise package. That’s when we started evaluating Cilium.”
Calvin Yu, Product Manager at QingCloud Technologies
The KubeSphere platform is designed as a management layer on top of Kubernetes, deployable on physical servers, virtual machines, edge nodes, and existing Kubernetes clusters. QingCloud’s clients utilize diverse setups, ranging from AWS EKS to VMware VMs and bare-metal servers. “Through KubeSphere, we offer cloud native solutions tailored to various industries. Our clients’ IT environments are unique,” Wang explained.
Before integrating Cilium, QingCloud primarily offered Calico as the default CNI to their customers. However, they faced challenges in meeting the advanced networking requirements of certain clients.
“Some of our customers had strong requirements for network management across Kubernetes clusters and better performance that Calico couldn’t meet.”
Calvin Yu, Product Manager at QingCloud Technologies
QingCloud’s decision to integrate Cilium was driven by its superior performance, advanced features, and ease of deployment.
“Cilium is much easier to deploy than other CNIs. It’s also simpler to install and maintain on Kubernetes.”
Calvin Yu, Product Manager at QingCloud Technologies
Using KubeKey, QingCloud made it straightforward for clients to select Cilium as their preferred CNI during cluster deployment. This allowed for seamless integration into existing environments without significant overhead.
The integration of Cilium brought substantial business value to QingCloud. It expanded its customer base and they were able to attract tech-forward companies and startups interested in cutting-edge networking technologies. The advanced features of Cilium, such as multi-cluster management and improved performance, allowed QingCloud to enhance its product functionality. Finally, their clients who required high-performance networking and advanced capabilities were pleased with the new options available.
“Introducing Cilium helped us reach more new customers, provided a variety of solutions to meet the needs of customers in different scenarios, and enhanced our product with more capabilities.”
Calvin Yu, Product Manager at QingCloud Technologies
Future Plans and Offering More Capabilities with Cilium
By integrating Cilium into its CNI offerings, QingCloud successfully addressed the challenges of providing high-performance, secure, and flexible networking solutions to a diverse customer base. This move not only enhanced their product portfolio but also strengthened their position in the competitive cloud computing market.
“Integrating Cilium has allowed us to provide a variety of solutions to meet the needs of customers in different scenarios.”
Calvin Yu, Product Manager at QingCloud Technologies
Looking ahead, QingCloud intends to deepen the integration of Cilium’s capabilities within KubeSphere. Plans are underway to leverage Cilium’s APIs to create visual extensions within the KubeSphere console, making advanced networking features more accessible through an intuitive interface.
“We will provide more features through the UI to let customers use Cilium directly from the console, instead of using YAML files because traditional customers prefer to use the UI console.”
Calvin Yu, Product Manager at QingCloud Technologies