The Challenge
The time-consuming task of Managing Kubernetes Clusters
Bioinformaticians at the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) faced growing demands for Kubernetes clusters to support their research projects.
The de.NBI Cloud already enabled quick cluster creation. However, managing and updating these clusters took up valuable time that could have been spent on research.
The Solution
Automating tasks with KKP
Collaborating with the cloud team at BIH at Charité, SVA experts recommended the Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform (KKP).
KKP enabled the creation of a scalable central control plane, which unlocked flexible scalability. It also seamlessly integrated different cloud providers - in this case, the OpenStack-based cloud at BIH.
The Impact
Cluster Management with just a click
With KKP, the end users (bioinformaticians) no longer need in-depth knowledge of the infrastructure to manage their clusters. They can simply select the required resources and node types for their clusters. With KKP, even updates to the clusters can be carried out with just a click, freeing them to focus on innovative research without the technical hassles.
The mission of the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) is medical translation: findings from biomedical research are transferred into new approaches for personalized prediction, prevention, diagnostics, and therapy. Conversely, observations in everyday clinical practice lead to new research ideas.
BIH was founded in 2013 and is 90 percent funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), and 10 percent by the State of Berlin. The founding institutions Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Max Delbrück Center were independent members of BIH until 2020. Since 2021, BIH has been integrated into Charité as a so-called third pillar, and the Max Delbrück Center is a privileged partner of BIH.
A key advantage is that the Kubernetes control plane, or master nodes, are centrally hosted rather than set up as three virtual machines for each cluster. Once projects have access to KKP, users can fully manage the clusters themselves, making it extremely user-friendly.
