# Engineering Articles | Ankra Blog Canonical: https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/engineering 12 articles on Engineering from the Ankra blog: practical guides on Kubernetes, GitOps, and platform engineering. [All posts](https://ankra.ai/blog) Topic # Engineering 12 articles tagged with Engineering. [Kubernetes](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/kubernetes) [Engineering](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/engineering) [Homelab](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/homelab) [## Kubernetes the Hard Way, Part 3: Back Up etcd and Restore a Lost Control Plane](https://ankra.ai/blog/kubernetes-the-hard-way-backup-restore) Back up a Kubernetes 1.37 cluster by hand with etcd snapshots, then delete the control plane and restore it. Includes the encryption key trap, all tested. [Mattias Åsell](https://ankra.ai/blog/author/mattias-asell) October 25, 2026 12 min read [Kubernetes](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/kubernetes) [Engineering](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/engineering) [Homelab](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/homelab) [## Kubernetes the Hard Way, Part 5: Certificates, Expiry and Renewal Without Downtime](https://ankra.ai/blog/kubernetes-the-hard-way-certificates) Read every Kubernetes certificate, watch one expire, and renew them all by hand. Most components reload a renewed certificate with no restart at all. Tested. [Mattias Åsell](https://ankra.ai/blog/author/mattias-asell) October 25, 2026 9 min read [Kubernetes](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/kubernetes) [Engineering](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/engineering) [Homelab](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/homelab) [## Kubernetes the Hard Way, Part 2: A Highly Available Control Plane](https://ankra.ai/blog/kubernetes-the-hard-way-high-availability) Build a Kubernetes 1.37 control plane that survives losing a server. Three control planes, etcd with TLS, a load balancer, and failure drills, all tested. [Mattias Åsell](https://ankra.ai/blog/author/mattias-asell) October 25, 2026 13 min read [Kubernetes](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/kubernetes) [Engineering](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/engineering) [Homelab](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/homelab) [## Kubernetes the Hard Way, Part 4: Pod Networking by Hand, Without a CNI Plugin](https://ankra.ai/blog/kubernetes-the-hard-way-networking) Build Kubernetes pod networking by hand with network namespaces, veth pairs, a bridge, routes and NAT, then call a CNI plugin yourself and trace a Service. Tested. [Mattias Åsell](https://ankra.ai/blog/author/mattias-asell) October 25, 2026 11 min read [Kubernetes](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/kubernetes) [Engineering](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/engineering) [Homelab](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/homelab) [## Kubernetes the Hard Way in 2026: Kubernetes 1.37 From Scratch](https://ankra.ai/blog/kubernetes-the-hard-way) Kubernetes the Hard Way, updated for Kubernetes 1.37 and Debian 13. Every command tested end to end, on local machines and on Hetzner Cloud. [Mattias Åsell](https://ankra.ai/blog/author/mattias-asell) October 23, 2026 30 min read [Kubernetes](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/kubernetes) [Cost Optimization](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/cost-optimization) [Engineering](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/engineering) [## We Moved Our Production to UpCloud. Here Is What Sovereignty Actually Cost.](https://ankra.ai/blog/we-moved-production-to-upcloud) Ankra's own platform now runs in Helsinki. The timeline, the bill, the benchmark numbers, and the places UpCloud let us down, from the team that did the move. [Mattias Åsell](https://ankra.ai/blog/author/mattias-asell) September 21, 2026 14 min read [Kubernetes](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/kubernetes) [Comparisons](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/comparisons) [Cost Optimization](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/cost-optimization) [## AWS vs GCP vs Hetzner: Six Clouds, One Kubernetes Benchmark](https://ankra.ai/blog/six-clouds-one-kubernetes-benchmark) We ran the same k6, iperf3 and fio suite on EKS, GKE and Hetzner and lined the results up against UpCloud, OVH and DigitalOcean. The cheapest node in the test won more than it had any right to. [Mattias Åsell](https://ankra.ai/blog/author/mattias-asell) August 9, 2026 13 min read [Kubernetes](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/kubernetes) [Engineering](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/engineering) [Best Practices](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/best-practices) [## The Spec Sheet Is Not a Benchmark: Testing Kubernetes Clusters in 15 Minutes](https://ankra.ai/blog/benchmarking-kubernetes-clusters) Two identical cloud VMs measured 2.8x apart on CPU; one failed etcd's fsync bar. A 15-minute in-cluster benchmark suite catches this before production does. [Mattias Åsell](https://ankra.ai/blog/author/mattias-asell) August 8, 2026 9 min read [Kubernetes](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/kubernetes) [Comparisons](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/comparisons) [Cost Optimization](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/cost-optimization) [## UpCloud vs DigitalOcean vs OVH Kubernetes Benchmark](https://ankra.ai/blog/upcloud-vs-ovh-vs-digitalocean) UpCloud vs DigitalOcean vs OVH on identical Kubernetes clusters. UpCloud led on storage and network, OVH on latency, DigitalOcean had the slowest tails. [Mattias Åsell](https://ankra.ai/blog/author/mattias-asell) August 8, 2026 12 min read [Kubernetes](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/kubernetes) [Engineering](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/engineering) [Best Practices](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/best-practices) [## Postgres on Kubernetes Is No Longer a Dare](https://ankra.ai/blog/postgres-on-kubernetes) The 'never run a database on Kubernetes' rule predates CSI and operators. What production Postgres takes in 2026, and when managed still wins. [Shiva Swaroop N K](https://ankra.ai/blog/author/shiva-swaroop) August 3, 2026 7 min read [Engineering](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/engineering) [AI](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/ai) [Security](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/security) [## Ankra is now ankra.ai: Rewritten in Go, Ready for What's Next](https://ankra.ai/blog/ankra-is-now-ankra-ai) A new name, a new engine, and the biggest release we have ever shipped: the Go rewrite, an AI that owns the incident loop, passkey security, European multi-cloud, and Ankra on your phone. [Mark Shine](https://ankra.ai/blog/author/mark-shine) July 6, 2026 8 min read [Engineering](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/engineering) [GitOps](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/gitops) [Platform Engineering](https://ankra.ai/blog/tag/platform-engineering) [## GitOps Without ArgoCD: Inside Ankra's Native Deployment Engine](https://ankra.ai/blog/native-deployment-engine) New Ankra clusters no longer run ArgoCD. Here is the engineering story of the native deployment engine: why we built it, how the reconcile loop works, what the migration does to your live resources (nothing), and what we have not finished yet. [Mattias Åsell](https://ankra.ai/blog/author/mattias-asell) June 26, 2026 8 min read