Thom McCann, senior manager and software engineer at T-Mobile, discussed how Kubernetes drove rapid growth and millions of dollars in savings, helping T-Mobile become the number two wireless provider in the U.S.
Jan 15, 2021
D2iQ
D2iQ
2 min read
Last month, we held the second Cloud Native Virtual Summit featuring Kubernetes with Alcide, our virtual conference showcasing how modern enterprises are leveraging Kubernetes, CI/CD and GitOps to power their digital transformation.
We were proud to host world-class organizations and leaders in cloud, data, development, and containers, who shared best practices and real-world stories during the event. One of those leaders, Thom McCann, senior manager and software engineer at T-Mobile, discussed how Kubernetes drove rapid growth and millions of dollars in savings, helping T-Mobile become the number two wireless provider in the U.S.
Thom reminded attendees that T-Mobile was the number four carrier in the U.S and moving in the wrong direction only a couple of years ago. Less than four years later, T-Mobile is now the number two carrier responsible for driving much of the industry’s innovation and evolution. This is due primarily to the introduction of new technologies required to drive customer care and needs.
In December 2018, T-Mobile saw an inflection point as the number of containers it was running in the cloud exceeded the number of virtual machines (VMs). As time went on, the growth of virtual machines in the cloud stopped and the number of containers started to surge. This empowered the developer team with a flat computing cost trajectory. Thom shared that the continued adoption of container-based applications and Kubernetes saved T-Mobile “many many many millions of dollars.”
So how does this all flow into the super-hyped 5G world? Thom explained how applications based on Kubernetes will continue to be the best way to take advantage of the new compute opportunities delivered by 5G. As 5G becomes standard, we will see mobile compute on the edge directly connected to cell towers, enabling many new types of innovation, including autonomous driving, drones, mobile gaming and more. “Investments you make today in Kubernetes will continue to drive distributed applications and the solutions we build on the public cloud and data centers in the years to come,” added Thom.
Thom’s entire presentation, K8s is Everywhere - including the 5G Edge, is available on-demand now.
