# Kubernetes Resource Orchestrator (KRO), with Jesse Butler and Nic Slattery

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Podcast: [Kubernetes Podcast from Google](https://stenobird.com/podcast/kubernetes-podcast-from-google)
Published: 2025-04-01T16:57:00+00:00
Episode link: https://e780d51f-f115-44a6-8252-aed9216bb521.libsyn.com/kubernetes-resource-orchestrator-kro-with-jesse-butler-and-nic-slattery
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Duration seconds: 2654

## Resource

The Kubernetes Resource Orchestrator (KRO) provides a cloud-agnostic way to group and manage complex Kubernetes resources as a single unit. It aims to simplify the developer experience by replacing massive YAML configurations with high-level, reconcilable resource graphs.

## Highlights
- Main idea: KRO acts as a server-side orchestration layer that groups Kubernetes objects and cloud resources into manageable, high-level abstractions
- Practical takeaway: Developers can replace dozens of lines of complex YAML with a concise Resource Graph Definition (RGD) that hides underlying infrastructure complexity
- Failure mode: While KRO simplifies management, it is not a replacement for custom operators when deep, specialized logic is required
- Key advantage: Unlike Helm, which is primarily a packaging tool, KRO operates as a Kubernetes controller with a continuous reconciliation loop to prevent configuration drift
- Technical benefit: KRO uses a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) and static analysis to validate resource dependencies and relationships before deployment

## Topics

Kubernetes, KRO, Cloud Native, Infrastructure as Code, Platform Engineering, Resource Orchestration, AWS, Google Cloud

## Chapters
- 1:00 — Kagent and Cloud Next: Brief update on the Kagent AI agent framework and upcoming Google Cloud Next event.
- 4:10 — The Problem with Manual Management: Discussing the difficulty of managing hundreds of individual Kubernetes resources and the overhead of building custom operators.
- 7:15 — The KRO Philosophy: Avoiding new DSLs and instead leveraging existing Kubernetes Resource Model (KRM) capabilities to group resources.
- 10:25 — Cross-Cloud Collaboration: How engineers from Google, AWS, and Azure are collaborating on KRO to meet shared customer demands.
- 13:40 — Cloud Agnostic Portability: Leveraging KRO to maintain consistent workflows across different cloud providers like AWS and GCP.
- 17:05 — Visibility and Dependencies: The importance of seeing resource groupings and dependencies directly within the cluster.
- 20:40 — Defining Resource Graphs: Using simple schemas to define how infrastructure, services, and applications interact.
- 24:00 — Orchestrating Cloud Services: Using KRO to manage high-level parameters for services like EKS and GKE.

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