Articles

Why virtual clusters aren’t “fake” Kubernetes clusters — they’re the foundation of real multi-tenant platforms built for cloud, on-prem, and bare metal.

Many engineers think “virtual” means “not real.” In Kubernetes, the opposite is true. Virtual clusters run full control planes inside namespaces, giving teams real isolation, faster CI/CD, and multi-tenant efficiency across cloud and on-prem infrastructure with vCluster from Loft Labs.

A practical guide to implementing cloud bursting using vCluster VPN, Private Nodes, and Auto Nodes for secure, elastic, multi-cloud scalability.

Cloud bursting lets you expand compute capacity on demand without overprovisioning or re-architecting your systems. In this guide, we break down how vCluster VPN connects Private and Auto Nodes securely across environments—so you can scale beyond limits while keeping costs and complexity in check.

Eliminating the “Cluster 1 problem” with vCluster Standalone v0.29 – the unified foundation for Kubernetes multi-tenancy on bare metal, VMs, and cloud.

vCluster Standalone changes the Kubernetes tenancy spectrum by removing the need for external host clusters. With direct bare metal and VM bootstrapping, teams gain full control, stronger isolation, and vendor-supported simplicity. Explore how vCluster Standalone (v0.29) solves the “Cluster 1 problem” while supporting Shared, Private, and Auto Nodes for any workload.

Kubernetes pods scale elastically, but node scaling often stops at the provider boundary. Auto Nodes extend Private Nodes to bring elasticity and portability to isolated clusters across clouds, private datacenters, and bare metal.

Pods autoscale in Kubernetes, but nodes don’t. Outside managed services, teams fall back on brittle scripts or costly overprovisioning. With vCluster Platform 4.4 + vCluster v0.28, Auto Nodes close the gap, bringing automated provisioning and elastic scaling to isolated clusters across clouds, private datacenters, and bare metal.

Dedicated, tenant‑owned nodes with a managed control plane, full isolation without running separate clusters.

Private Nodes complete vCluster’s tenancy spectrum: tenants connect their own nodes to a centrally managed control plane for full isolation, custom runtimes (CRI/CNI/CSI), and consistent performance, ideal for AI/ML, HPC, and regulated environments. Learn how it works and what’s next with Auto Nodes.

Why sharding etcd doesn’t scale, and how virtual clusters eliminate control plane bottlenecks in large Kubernetes environments.

OpenAI’s outage revealed what happens when etcd breaks at scale. This post explains why sharding isn’t enough, and how vCluster offloads API load with virtual control planes. Benchmark included.

A curated list of impactful, technical, and thought-provoking sessions to catch at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon India 2025 in Hyderabad.

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon India 2025 is back in Hyderabad on August 6–7! With so many exciting sessions, it can be hard to choose. Here are 5 standout talks you shouldn't miss, from real-world Kubernetes meltdowns to scaling GitOps at Expedia, and even why Kubernetes is moving to NFTables.

How shared clusters fall short, and why virtual clusters are the future of controller development.

Shared clusters are cost-effective, but when it comes to building and testing Kubernetes controllers, they create bottlenecks, from CRD conflicts to governance issues. This blog breaks down the trade-offs between shared, local, and dedicated clusters and introduces virtual clusters as the scalable solution for platform teams.

Keep your CI pipelines clean and efficient by automating Kubernetes resource cleanup with vCluster and Loft.

Leftover Kubernetes resources from CI jobs can drive up cloud costs and clutter your clusters. This guide shows how to automate cleanup tasks using vCluster, helping you maintain cleaner, faster CI/CD pipelines.

Keep your CI pipelines clean and efficient by automating Kubernetes resource cleanup with vCluster and Loft.

Leftover Kubernetes resources from CI jobs can drive up cloud costs and clutter your clusters. This guide shows how to automate cleanup tasks using vCluster, helping you maintain cleaner, faster CI/CD pipelines.

Step-by-step guide to setting up a GPU-enabled Kubernetes cluster on GKE for scalable AI and ML workloads.

Running AI or ML workloads on Kubernetes? This tutorial walks you through setting up a GPU enabled GKE cluster, from configuring GPU quotas and node pools to testing workloads and optimizing for multi-team GPU usage with vCluster.

Enable multi-tenant Kubernetes service mesh with zero sidecars and seamless Istio integration using Ambient Mode and vCluster.

The v0.25 release of vCluster brings native support for Istio’s Ambient Mesh, enabling shared service mesh capabilities across multiple virtual clusters without sidecars. This update dramatically reduces resource overhead, simplifies operations, and boosts scalability in multi-tenant Kubernetes environments.

KubeCon is around the corner, and we at LoftLabs are excited to be back for the 2025 Europe Edition! The projected number of attendees speaks to the scale of the cloud-native landscape, and we’re so excited to mark our presence with talks, activities, and being a proud sponsor. V...

Kubernetes Ingress is the most widely used Kubernetes resource for exposing an application to the outside world. Understanding the concepts and Layer-7 load balancing may sound difficult, but with this article, it won’t be. This article uses Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) as the ...

Cursor has taken the dev community by storm. Over the past couple of months, it has become one of developers' favourite tools! Guess what? DevPod's latest release, v5.20, comes with Cursor's experimental integration enabled by default. If you haven’t heard about Cursor yet, it's ...

Kubernetes 1.31 has been released, bringing with it significant contributions. This large project continually adds new features during each release cycle, with new additions to alpha to reflect the ongoing innovation and optimization within Kubernetes. The 1.31 release team has i...

The traditional development environment nowadays consists of many moving pieces. Most of them are there to empower a developer to ship faster while helping companies streamline their processes. DevPod is a solution that helps you create isolated, decelerative, and streamlined dev...

Inside the Platform Engineering Meetup in Bengaluru: a Recap About the Talks, Numbers and the People Behind.

In the last few weeks, our social media channels were filled with pictures from the first Platform Meetup we hosted. This was the inaugural edition, and we had a lot of fun in Bengaluru, India, with exciting speakers sharing their knowledge on topics ranging from virtualization o...

DevPod has a new version v0.5.5, with a bunch of noteworthy features and fixes. 🎉 The complete list of bug fixes and features can be found on the GitHub Release Page, but we are here to talk about the most exciting updates. Without further ado, let’s dive into these features. Git...

DevPod has a new release with a ton of new features ranging from Custom SSH config management to new community providers (you can view the list here). Let’s dive a bit deeper into all of them so you can know what are the new features in your favorite CDE. GitHub Growth In less th...

Learn how to configure DevPod with Podman Desktop to create flexible, containerized development environments.

How you can utilize Podman to create Dev Containers with DevPod

This blog talks about the tool, how you can get started with DevPod quickly on GCP, and the benefits of Cloud Development Environment in general.

In this post, we will share how we are celebrating the spirit of Hacktoberfest at Loft and how you can be a part of it!

A comprehensive comparison of four leading remote development environments to help you choose the best fit for your team's workflow.

Streamlining your development environment can be a game changer in a world where every second counts. Remote development environments are rising because of their benefits while scaling a team. Removing the overhead of smoothly managing and configuring developer environments is an...

A comprehensive comparison between DevPod and GitPod, highlighting differences in hosting models, customization capabilities, and integration options for development environments.

Comparing DevPod vs. GitPod - Cost, platform type, providers, and more.

Enhance your container security with Chainguard's comprehensive solutions, ensuring vulnerability-free images and robust supply chain protection.

This guide explains how solutions like Chainguard can help with container image security for your specific use case

This article covers the different types of isolation features available in Kubernetes, how they implement isolation, and their limitations.

In this article you’ll see how to manage secrets when using GitOps with Kubernetes

Harness Git as the single source of truth to streamline Kubernetes deployments and enhance operational efficiency.

Learn about the principles of GitOps, its benefits both for operational and development purposes, and how it can help you effectively manage infrastructure and applications with its declarative nature.

This article explains how to secure the update processes of a container registry (Harbor) with TUF specification and Cosign.

A curated list of standout CNCF projects that enhance cloud-native development, operations, and scalability.

This article contains ten projects, including Kubernetes, the leading container orchestration system; DevSpace, which is used to improve developer experience; vcluster, which aids in cluster virtualization; and Grafana and Prometheus, which aid in monitoring your cluster's resources and objects.

Kubernetes stands out as one of the most popular container orchestration tools currently available, with 5.6 million developers using the orchestrator by the end of 2021, a 67% increase from the previous year.