Rust for the Kubernetes Ecosystem - Deepu K Sasidharan - Rust Linz, April 2022

Explore the benefits of using Rust in the Kubernetes ecosystem, including memory safety, performance, and a rapidly growing community, as well as its suitability for building microservices, sidecars, and other small components.

Key takeaways
  • Memory safety is a significant benefit of using Rust, which ensures predictable behavior and prevents common areas of vulnerability such as buffer overflows and use-after-free bugs.
  • Rust’s speed and performance are comparable to those of Go, but with the added benefit of memory safety.
  • The Rust ecosystem is still developing, but it is rapidly growing and has the potential to become a major player in the Kubernetes community.
  • There are several Rust libraries and tools already available for building Kubernetes ecosystem tools, such as kubars, risotto, and WebAssembly.
  • Rust is well-suited for building microservices, sidecars, and other small components that require high-performance and predictability.
  • The developer experience of using Rust is generally better than that of Go, with features such as zero-cost abstractions and compile-time guarantees.
  • Rust’s async programming model and Tokio libraries make it easy to build high-performance, non-blocking applications.
  • Rust’s strong type system and borrow checker prevent common errors such as null pointer dereferences and data races.
  • Rust’s error handling model is more robust than that of Go, with features such as error types and pattern matching.
  • Rust’s WebAssembly runtime, VASM, allows for the execution of WebAssembly code on Kubernetes, opening up new possibilities for building web applications.
  • Rust’s ABIs (Application Binary Interfaces) are designed to be highly compatible with other languages, making it easy to integrate Rust code with other languages.
  • Rust’s testing and debugging tools are highly developed and easy to use, making it easy to develop and maintain large-scale software systems.
  • Rust’s async programming model is well-suited for building real-time data processing and event-driven architectures.
  • Rust’s strong focus on code safety and security makes it an attractive choice for building mission-critical systems.
  • Rust’s libraries and tools for building Kubernetes ecosystem tools are still developing, but they have the potential to become major players in the Kubernetes community.