D2iQ: Use-Cases, Insights and Reviews | 2025 Cuspera

DKP 2.6 Features New AI Navigator to Bridge the Kubernetes Skills Gap

The latest release of the D2iQ Kubernetes Platform (DKP) represents yet another significant boost to DKP’s multi-cloud and multi-cluster management capabilities. D2iQ Kubernetes Platform (DKP) 2.6 features the new DKP AI Navigator, an AI assistant that enables DevOps to more easily manage Kubernetes environments.  

As Forbes noted in Addressing the Kubernetes Skills Gap, “The Kubernetes skills shortage is impacting companies across sectors.â€� 

AI Navigator can help enterprise organizations overcome the Kubernetes skills gap by giving Kubernetes DevOps teams expert advice at their fingertips. Further easing Kubernetes management are enhancements to DKP Insights, an automated troubleshooting tool that can identify problems and provide recommendations to resolve the issues.  

Unique Data Set Delivers Unique Value

Being trained on D2iQ’s expert knowledge base is the key differentiator that gives DKP AI Navigator its unique value. Unlike AI apps like ChatGPT, which draw data from the public Internet, DKP AI Navigator uses the data housed in D2iQ’s internal knowledge base. This enables organizations to harness more than a decade of D2iQ’s experience and expertise in managing large container-based deployments.

DKP AI Navigator is integrated directly into the D2iQ Kubernetes Platform (DKP), giving users the ability to manage Kubernetes fleets via a single pane of glass. The net effect is like having an expert co-pilot at your side to help solve problems as they arise.  

Solving Multi-Cluster Complexity Through Deeper Insights 

DKP 2.6 includes an enhanced DKP Insights version (currently in technology preview) that gives customers self-service troubleshooting capability. With this update, enterprises and public sector organizations can obtain a Cluster Insight Report on issues related to the health of clusters and vulnerabilities in the installed containers. This gives organizations reassurance on the health of their clusters and peace of mind knowing that any potential issues will be identified quickly, along with recommended remediation steps. 

Additional DKP 2.6 enhancements include: 

Overcome the Skills Gap with Instant Platform Engineering

Many enterprises have encountered project delays, says Forbes, “because operationalizing Kubernetes with the right level of automation and governance requires time and a healthy influx of experienced engineers.�

DKP helps organizations overcome the skills gap by providing instant platform engineering that features state-of-the-art automation, centralized multi-cloud and multi-cluster management, and intelligent assistants. Rather than wrestling with complex Kubernetes infrastructure, DKP 2.6 provides a production-ready platform to enable teams to devote their energies to higher-value business activities. 

Read the full DKP 2.6 press release here.

See how DKP provides multi-cluster management in the D2iQ Engineering Blog.

To learn more about how your organization can benefit from a DKP 2.6 deployment, speak with the experts at D2iQ.

Next-Gen Defense: Unleashing the Power of Kubernetes

If you are involved in a U.S. military modernization project, you won't want to miss our upcoming webinar: "Next-Gen Defense: Unleashing the Power of Kubernetes for AI/ML and Cybersecurity Modernization."

The U.S. Department of Defense’s Software Modernization Strategy calls for gaining a competitive advantage to achieve strategic and tactical superiority. Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and implementing zero trust security are critical parts of the movement to modernize the U.S. military. 

To this end, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks issued a memorandum in February 2022 establishing the formation of the DoD Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO). 

The U.S. government’s next-generation security strategy calls for achieving zero trust capability by the end of Fiscal Year 2024. The strategy has been updated, most recently in a National Cybersecurity Strategy document released in March 2023.  

Although obtaining zero trust and AI capability are DoD goals, achieving these goals requires the right technology approach and skill set. In our upcoming webinar, entitled "Next-Gen Defense: Unleashing the Power of Kubernetes for AI/ML and Cybersecurity Modernization," Kubernetes experts will provide insights and best practices to help your organization succeed in achieving these capabilities. 

Key topics that will be covered include:

Join Us Here

September 19, 2023 at 1:00 PM EST | 9:00 AM PST 

"Next-Gen Defense: Unleashing the Power of Kubernetes for AI/ML and Cybersecurity Modernization"

Presenter: 

Save My Spot! 

As always, don’t forget to pass this on. Tell a friend, tell your colleagues, and mark your calendars and meet us at a screen near you! 

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Modernizing Cybersecurity: New Challenges, New Practices

The practice of cybersecurity is undergoing radical transformation in the face of new threats introduced by new technologies. As a McKinsey & Company survey notes, “an expanding attack surface is driving innovation in cybersecurity.â€� 

Kubernetes and the cloud are infrastructure technologies with many moving parts that have introduced new attack surfaces and created a host of new security challenges.  

To meet these challenges, modern security modes have emerged, including Zero Trust, Shift Left, DevSecOps, and air-gapping. Successfully achieving these security modes and practices requires technology and cultural changes.   

Mastering these methodologies can be tricky, which is why you won’t want to miss our upcoming expert discussion entitled Mastering Cloud-Native Security: Get Proactive with GitOps, DevSecOps, and More.

In this webinar, D2iQ CEO Tobi Knaup and ESG Analyst Paul Nashawaty will share expert insights and best practices to enable you to avoid the pitfalls and establish the strongest security posture, at scale, across your entire infrastructure.

Modern infrastructure and security topics that will be covered include:

Join Us Here

September 12, 2023 at 9:00AM PST | 12:00 PM EST | 5:00PM BST 

Presenters:

Hosted by Paul Nashawaty, Senior Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group

Featuring Tobi Knaup, D2iQ CEO and Co-Founder 

Save My Spot!

As always, don’t forget to pass this on. Tell a friend, tell your colleagues, and mark your calendars and meet us at a screen near you! 

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Air-Gapping Should Be Head-Slappingly Obvious

When you think of air-gapped security, you imagine a protective distancing that separates your sensitive data from those who would steal it. In practice, the separation is a disconnection from the Internet. If no one can get to your data, no one can steal it. 

However, air-gapped deployments that are completely disconnected from the Internet are not the case in all instances. It’s true that many clusters are fully air-gapped, particularly in classified government installations. In these secure air-gapped facilities, the buildings have no connection to the Internet. 

There also are warfighter deployments that are fully air-gapped. For example, fighter jets that run Kubernetes are fully air-gapped. 

Air-Gapping Takes Many Shapes

In addition to the fully disconnected air-gapped environments, there are logically air-gapped environments in which the protected systems have no connection to the public Internet, but the facility does have Internet connections.  

In the traditional IT model of the 1990s up to the present, the default security mode for servers deployed in a data center were essentially air-gapped. The data on the servers were protected by a firewall, which created a demilitarized zone (DMZ).

Each individual port opened up to the public Internet required a security review, a process that could take up to months of testing. Software, by and large, was either built internally or purchased and installed internally. Source repositories (repos) were internal. None of these systems needed an Internet connection. The “default� server was effectively air-gapped from the Internet.

Cloud Changes the Game

In the cloud-native era, major changes occurred. First, the apps we are running have changed. We are consuming much more software as a service (a model pioneered by companies like Salesforce, but that now includes most business applications), and those applications need access to backend systems and vice versa, so there is a greater need for external communication.

Second, the apps we are building are increasingly outward facing. Regardless of the industry, software has, in the words of Marc Andreeson, eaten the world. Organizations of every stripe are producing apps and services exposed to the outside world. In mobile apps, APIs, and integrations with third parties, much more of the code is written to be exposed.

Beyond that: The way we build, deploy, and run those apps has changed. Source control systems are often outside the firewall, we are pulling container images, and we are pulling Kubernetes itself. We have package managers that grab dependencies as part of our build process, and others that grab them as part of our deployment process. So that build/deploy process is often dependent on the Internet.

Finally: Infrastructure itself is now often in the cloud, and it is typically deployed in a non-centralized manner. In the past you would request a server or virtual machine (VM) from your IT group, wait two months, and IT would deliver it to you. A separate ticket was required if you needed to open a port to the Internet! Now you can simply spin up a cluster yourself in the cloud.

All these trends changed how we work with software deployment.

Use Some Air-Gapping Finesse

With the Internet and cloud computing came a new term: air-gapping! However, rather than air-gap only your most sensitive data, and in the most isolated buildings, you can reap the benefits of air-gapped security by “logicallyâ€� air-gapping. 

You can accomplish this by creating a digital moat between your cluster and the Internet. You can use this method to secure your software supply chain and prevent image grabbing from the Internet. 

You can secure images for your apps as well as for your infrastructure! Think about each thing that needs to be exposed to the Internet, and only expose those things that, well, need to be exposed!

Adopt an Air-Gapped Mindset

So where does that lead us? To a much much better state. We get the flexibility and rapid development we seek in a Kubernetes infrastructure, as well as the scalability inherent in cloud-native development.

We gain all these advantages without the risk of having everything exposed. Rather, we apply what have always been best practices: Only expose the bare minimum and ensure that the things we are deploying are coming from internal sources and not from the wide-open insecure Internet.

When we view air-gapped security in this way, the decision to air-gap clusters becomes head-slappingly obvious!

To learn how D2iQ can help you deploy air-gapped environments quickly and easily, speak with the Kubernetes security experts at D2iQ.