1) You can run k8s hosted on Google, DigitalOcean with zero effort.
2) I built a k8s cluster in 3 days with zero experience after spending a week playing with minikube, reading the docs are kuberentes.io
I'm pretty sure I can do it in an afternoon from scripts on github. But if something goes wrong all bets are off. Just getting something setup is not building a competence around it.
If you have no experience with (stack Z), then you will have to go out and get some experience before opting to use (stack Z). The problem is, many people hear this and stop there.
While there are some barriers to experience and production-readiness, they are not insurmountable, and there may be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There is a cost for everything. Sometimes it's an opportunity cost. (Sometimes the cost can also come from not acting.)
not sure if I agree with OP on precise figures, but, if you're dealing with:
- actually federated k8 infrastructure (distributed etcd, etc)
- enough system load that k8 is actually worthwhile and not 'cool'
- user / dev requests
- whatever background IT projects are going on (updates / new nodes, existing upgrades, testing new configs, etc)
and you want:
- 24x7 operations (or even stringent 8x5)
- people to be able to use the restroom and take vacations and still have 1-2 sets of hands available
1 person doesn't quite cut it, because (s)he will quit eventually, and you will have nooone.
dev-centric mentalities of 'it compiled, ship it, i made a new futuristic fancy feature aren't i amazeballs' often don't take into account real operational concerns, which i think is precisely the point in critiquing k8s here
$ sudo apt-get install fix-muh-k8s && sudo fix-muh-k8s || reboot