Kubernetes vs. Watson IoT Platform

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Kubernetes
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
Kubernetes is an open-source container cluster manager.N/A
Watson IoT Platform
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
The IBM Watson IoT Platform is an Internet-of-things is a managed cloud-hosted solution supporting device connectivity, control, visualization, and overall device visibility and management. It provides a UI where users can add and manage devices, control access to IoT service, and monitor usage. With its device management service, users can perform device actions like rebooting or updating firmware, receive device diagnostics and metadata, or perform bulk device addition and removal.N/A
Pricing
KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
Features
KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
Container Management
Comparison of Container Management features of Product A and Product B
Kubernetes
8.4
Ratings
8% above category average
Watson IoT Platform
-
Ratings
Security and Isolation8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Container Orchestration9.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Cluster Management9.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Storage Management7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Allocation and Optimization7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Discovery Tools8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Update Rollouts and Rollbacks8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Self-Healing and Recovery8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Analytics, Monitoring, and Logging8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
Small Businesses
Portainer
Portainer
Score 9.6 out of 10
Portainer
Portainer
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Enterprises
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(0 ratings)
8.4
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
Along with all the best features and support by k8s, the automatic container scheduling to worker nodes and also self-healing containers which is what I like the most. On the other side, when I was installing the k8s cluster on CentOS 8, it was quite difficult for me, but never mind it is working as we expected and it is a one-time effort. Especially, in my case, there are more than 7 application containers required to run and communicate with each other, so for us, Kubernetes is an optimal solution.
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As long as we have a clear understanding of the "real" pain points-- and that involves gathering both structured and unstructured data-drawing conclusions-- Watson IoT has a role to play. The area I am most keen on that a move the Watson can help achieve would be to go from preventative maintenance, to predictive maintenance, to eventually prescriptive maintenance.
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Pros
  • Complex cluster management can be done with simple commands with strong authentication and authorization schemes
  • Exhaustive documentation and open community smoothens the learning process
  • As a user a few concepts like pod, deployment and service are sufficient to go a long way
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  • The asset information is available in both static and dynamic format (from thermal images, to OEM data, to time series data). The ability to ingest all the information using a single platform has great value.
  • Another benefit is a seamless integration with Maximo. This has been a challenge with other 3rd party systems available.
  • The experience of IBM Maximo systems updates is positive.
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Cons
  • Local development, Kubernetes does tend to be a bit complicated and unnecessary in environments where all development is done locally.
  • The need for add-ons, Helm is almost required when running Kubernetes. This brings a whole new tool to manage and learn before a developer can really start to use Kubernetes effectively.
  • Finicy configmap schemes. Kubernetes configmaps often have environment breaking hangups. The fail safes surrounding configmaps are sadly lacking.
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  • Some of the tutorials could use a little more improvement - While there is a considerable amount of documentation, most of the good documentation for Watson IoT we found to be from third-parties.
  • Administration and billing tools could use a bit more improvement - The UI is a bit clunky and poorly-designed here.
  • Be prepared to work with IBM support to get this going - Their turn-around support for inquiries can be lengthy, and setup time may also be quite lengthy because of this.
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Likelihood to Renew
The Kubernetes is going to be highly likely renewed as the technologies that will be placed on top of it are long term as of planning. There shouldn't be any last minute changes in the adoption and I do not anticipate sudden change of the core underlying technology. It is just that the slow process of technology adoption that makes it hard to switch to something else.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
It is an eminently usable platform. However, its popularity is overshadowed by its complexity. To properly leverage the capabilities and possibilities of Kubernetes as a platform, you need to have excellent understanding of your use case, even better understanding of whether you even need Kubernetes, and if yes - be ready to invest in good engineering support for the platform itself
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Alternatives Considered
As I said earlier also - - K8s manage the workloads better as compared to OpenStack in terms of reliability, observability & reachability. - K8s is not limited to only a single networking or storage solution as compared to OpenStack. - Networking (which is a key concept) is much simpler in K8s as compared to OpenStack. - It is possible to upgrade your applications without downtime in K8s but in OpenStack, you either have to divert the traffic or face an outage because you have to delete the whole stack & then recreate it.
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AWS offers an "IoT" product that similarly connects devices securely to centralize data exchange, predict downtime, and overall increase the efficiency of an IoT infrastructure. Like some of the other AWS products, the documentation is lacking and UI is quite hard to use, which is why we chose to use IBM Watson instead.
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Return on Investment
  • Because of microservices, Kubernetes makes it easy to find the cost of each application easily.
  • Like every new technology, initially, it took more resources to educate ourselves but over a period of time, I believe it's going to be worth it.
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  • Positive - This tool greatly increases most company's manufacturing and production efficiency, and the use-cases are extensive. It was a great way of decreasing down-time for us.
  • Negative - Took lots of work and energy to get up and running, we had to rely on IBM support and tutorials many times during this process.
  • Positive - Quite cheap, most of the tiers of pricing cost very little, and it's possible to use Watson IoT for a few months for free to see if it is beneficial for your company.
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ScreenShots