A Guide to Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service Shared Responsibility Model

Kubernetes is powerful, but managing it in-house can be a major drain on your engineering resources. That’s why many organizations are turning to Fairwinds Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service (KaaS): we handle the complexity, so you can focus on building what matters most—your applications and your business differentiations. It’s easy to be confused by the differences between Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service and managed Kubernetes services, such as those offered by Amazon (Elastic Kubernetes Service or EKS), Google (Google Kubernetes Engine or GKE), and Microsoft (Azure Kubernetes Service or AKS), so let's clarify how they're different. 

EKS, GKE, and AKS all help streamline the deployment of Kubernetes, and each of them includes a lot of helpful features and automated capabilities. Fairwinds Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service is a people-led offering that manages the entire underlying Kubernetes platform and all the third-party tooling that’s necessary to make the most of your K8s investment. Sounds great, right? But what does it mean in action?

Let’s walk through our approach to Kubernetes infrastructure —from building through maintenance, the shared responsibility model we follow, and how partnership with Fairwinds ensures your Kubernetes infrastructure is serving your organization’s needs. Whether you’re moving from on-prem to cloud, switching Kubernetes service providers, migrating from VMware Tanzu to K8s, or moving to Kubernetes to take advantage of cloud-native capabilities for AI workloads, Fairwinds can help ensure your infrastructure is always aligned with your business goals.

A Shared Responsibility Model

At its heart, our responsibility model is quite clear: you envision your apps and services and write them while we build and run your infrastructure. These are the specifics:

Typical engagements follow the above shared responsibility model; the model can be adjusted to meet individual customer needs.

With Managed KaaS, you remain in control of your application and business logic, while Fairwinds takes care of everything Kubernetes: provisioning, scaling, upgrades, addon selection and updates, API changes, patching, monitoring, and more.

What Does Managed KaaS Take Off Your Plate?

We handle the heavy lifting so you don’t have to worry about:

• Cluster Management: We provision, scale, upgrade, and secure your Kubernetes clusters—no need for your team to become infrastructure experts.
• Infrastructure as Code: All clusters are built and managed using best-in-class automation and open source tooling, ensuring consistency and repeatability.
• Security & Compliance: Automated scanning, policy enforcement, and compliance checks (including SOC 2, PCI DSS, the HIPAAA Privacy Rule, and others) are built in, minimizing your risk and audit burden.
• Cost Optimization: We monitor and optimize your cloud spend, providing visibility and controls to ensure responsible usage.
• Developer Enablement: Developers can use the tools they love, move faster, and focus on building features, not struggling to build and maintain infrastructure.
• 24/7 Support: Our SREs are on call, ready to respond to infrastructure-related incidents and provide expert guidance when you need it, such as selecting a new addon or CNI.
• Fairwinds Insights: Every managed service includes our Insights platform, which enforces Kubernetes best practices for reliability, efficiency, and security—without slowing down development. It provides the guardrails your teams need to deploy with confidence, knowing they won’t accidentally deploy workloads that contain vulnerabilities or are misconfigured. 

Q&As and Regular Syncs

Success is never just about technology—it’s about partnership. That’s why we spend time with our clients to understand their needs and how to support them. 

• Q&As: We meet with your team to review progress, ensure deliverables are on track, and discuss how our service is supporting your business goals. We also have a dedicated Slack channel for each client, so it’s easy to touch base. Together, we can make infrastructure decisions that meet your present and future needs.
• Regular Syncs: We check in regularly to share updates, resolve issues, and keep the lines of communication flowing. This ensures your team is never left in the dark about what’s happening with your infrastructure.

Why Choose Fairwinds Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service?

• Accelerate Time-to-Value: Get production-ready infrastructure in days, not months, and start delivering value to your customers faster.
• Reduce Operational Burden: Offload the complexity of Kubernetes management to experts, freeing your team to focus on innovation.
• Scale with Confidence: As your business grows, we scale your infrastructure—securely, reliably, and cost-effectively.
• Stay Secure and Compliant: Automated guardrails and proactive monitoring mean you’re always up to date and audit-ready.

With Fairwinds Managed Kubernetes-as-a-Service, you get more than basic Kubernetes infrastructure management, you get a true partner dedicated to your success. Our shared responsibility model means you always know where our responsibilities end and yours begin. 

Ready to focus on what makes your business unique? Let Fairwinds handle the Kubernetes complexity, so you can deliver, innovate, and grow.