In our latest webinar, “Unlocking the Power of Managed Kubernetes® with UpCloud” host Will Barlow was joined by PaaS Product Manager, Miguelángel Fernández and Lead Engineer, Nathaniel Ham to unveil the next evolution of UpCloud Kubernetes Service (UKS).
Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s new, what’s improved, and what’s next.
Watch the recording here!
What is UKS?
UKS is designed to reduce the complexity of deploying containers in the cloud. By abstracting the control plane, UKS allows developers to focus on their applications while delivering performance and scalability.
What’s New with UKS?
- Automatic Upgrades: Users can now upgrade clusters with a click, staying up-to-date without hassle.
- Free Developer Control Plane: To lower both cognitive and financial barriers, we now provide complimentary developer control planes.
- Simplified UI and UX: A refined interface helps users launch clusters in minutes, regardless of experience.
Challenges that spark solutions
Highlighting the evolution of UpCloud’s managed Kubernetes offering, Nate shared insights on how the team’s internal use of UKS helped identify real-world issues. In understanding that usability has to be the center of everything, the team got to work to make deployments effortless, removing the learning curve commonly associated with running Kubernetes.
As UKS is built on top of UpCloud’s own infrastructure, this meant the team had to optimize the user experience for themselves first, with early internal demos helping teams visualize their contributions (like load balancers and VMs) coming together in real-time.
Facing scalability and user experience hurdles head-on led to more robust architecture choices and product decisions that benefit all users.
See Kubernetes’ self-healing capabilities in real-time in our KubeDoom demo →
What’s next for UKS?
Automated clustered and a free developer control plane is only the start or the updates for UKS! Here’s what users can expect in the coming months:
- Q2 2025: Support for larger control planes and continued Kubernetes version certifications (1.32 next).
- Q3 2025: Deeper integration with UpCloud products like PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Prometheus.
- Q4 2025: Focus on ease-of-use with templated apps, enhanced security tooling, and advanced troubleshooting support.
From beginner-friendly features to power-user flexibility, UKS is evolving fast!
