Kubernetes Operators

Kubernetes (K8s) is a widely used open-source platform for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

On Kubernetes, an Operator is a software extension to the Kubernetes API that uses a custom resource definition (CRD) to provide an application-specific API. Operators follow basic Kubernetes principles such as the use of controllers (control loops) to regulate the state of a system.

The Operator pattern combines custom resources and custom controllers to encode application-specific knowledge into an extension of the Kubernetes API to automate orchestration tasks.

HiveMQ currently offers two operators for Kubernetes:

  • The HiveMQ Platform Operator for Kubernetes (new): The latest version of our operator to deploy and manage HiveMQ Platform clusters on Kubernetes. This new and updated operator supports all HiveMQ platform versions starting with 4.19 and features numerous usability, reliability, and scalability enhancements.

  • The HiveMQ Kubernetes Operator (legacy): The existing legacy version of our operator to deploy and manage HiveMQ clusters on Kubernetes. This version of the operator supports the current long-term support (LTS) version of the HiveMQ platform, HiveMQ 4.9, and every HiveMQ version until the next LTS version release.

When the next LTS version of the HiveMQ platform is released, the legacy operator will be sunsetted and the new HiveMQ Platform Operator will be required for LTS support. HiveMQ will end technical support for the legacy operator (and HiveMQ 4.9 LTS version) 6 months after the release of the next LTS version.