Kubernetes on Bare Metal: 5 Reasons Enterprises Should Skip the Hypervisor

What if you could trim 18% off your infrastructure costs while supercharging Kubernetes performance?

Kubernetes has transformed how modern businesses build, deploy, and manage applications, especially as the adoption of cloud-native platforms surges. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 95% of new workloads will run in cloud-native environments.

Yet, as enterprises face rising cloud costs and performance challenges, an increasing number are moving workloads off public clouds and onto private infrastructure. Bare-metal Kubernetes offers a compelling solution, bypassing hypervisors to deliver unmatched performance and cost-efficiency.

This article explores five reasons Kubernetes on bare metal has become the go-to strategy for organizations looking to optimize performance and reduce costs.

1. Cut Costs by Eliminating Hypervisor Overhead

Virtualized environments come with hidden inefficiencies and licensing fees.

According to Ericsson, Kubernetes on bare metal reduces Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by 18% compared to virtualized setups by removing hypervisor costs and improving resource utilization. Public cloud customers, on the other hand, regularly overpay.

An estimated 30% of public cloud spend is wasted annually, primarily due to over-provisioning and high egress fees. Bare-metal platforms, such as Hivelocity’s Kubernetes solutions, provide flat pricing with no hidden fees.

This predictability allows businesses to reclaim financial control. For example, Klink AI saw infrastructure costs drop 5× after migrating from AWS and IBM SoftLayer to Hivelocity’s bare-metal Kubernetes.

Key takeaway: Bare metal eliminates hypervisor inefficiencies and unpredictable cloud billing, offering substantial operating cost savings.

2. Experience Unparalleled Performance

Performance bottlenecks in cloud and virtual machine (VM) environments originate from hypervisor overhead.

Removing the hypervisor layer lets Kubernetes workloads run directly on the hardware, enabling twice the CPU speed, three times faster RAM access, and five times the network bandwidth compared to virtualized environments.

Real-World Results:

• Network Speed: Running Kubernetes on bare metal delivers network latency up to three times lower than typical VM deployments, making it highly advantageous for real-time applications.
• AI/ML Workloads: Distributed machine learning jobs scale more efficiently, with GPU scaling on bare metal showing 8% better throughput.
• Klink AI Success: By switching exclusively to Hivelocity’s bare-metal servers, Klink AI accelerated end-user transactions by 10×, cutting latency to seconds.

Pro tip: High-performance workloads like AI/ML and analytics thrive without virtualization barriers.

3. Unlock Greater Resource Efficiency

Virtualized Kubernetes environments often lead to underutilization of compute resources. Businesses over-provision VMs to avoid performance degradation from “noisy neighbors” in shared environments.

Bare-metal Kubernetes eliminates this problem, allocating hardware resources with precision and full utilization. This efficiency particularly benefits compute-heavy and data-intensive workloads like AI/ML, video rendering, and real-time analytics.

With Kubernetes on bare metal, businesses can maximize their return on investment by running at full capacity without worrying about resource contention.

Efficiency driver: Bare metal offers unparalleled granularity for resource allocation, ensuring every dollar spent on hardware delivers maximum output.

4. Enhance Security and Compliance

Data security and privacy present ongoing challenges in shared virtual environments. Bare-metal servers inherently offer more robust security since they are single-tenant systems. This setup reduces exposure to data breaches and guarantees that sensitive data remains locked down.

Compliance-Friendly Benefits:

• Easier HIPAA and PCI Compliance: Dedicated servers simplify adherence to regulations without relying on shared hosting risks.
• Regulated Environments: Bare-metal infrastructure supports GDPR and other compliance requirements by keeping sensitive assets on-premises.

Considering 83% of enterprises plan to migrate workloads from public clouds to private infrastructures, the security advantages of bare-metal Kubernetes are a key driver of this trend.

Peace of mind: Bare-metal Kubernetes prioritizes security and compliance by ensuring complete isolation and data sovereignty.

5. Simplify Deployment with Automation Tools

Deploying Kubernetes on bare metal has often been criticized as complex and time-consuming. However, modern tools and platforms have minimized these challenges, simplifying even the most intricate tasks.

Hivelocity’s One-Click Application Deployments eliminate traditional bottlenecks, enabling Kubernetes deployments in minutes. Their integrations with automation tools like Cluster API further streamline lifecycle management with full self-healing capabilities.

Applications including MicroK8s, Docker, CloudPanel, and more are instantly deployable through Hivelocity’s myVelocity portal.

Key Features of Hivelocity Automation:

• Fast Deployment: Provision dedicated servers in under 7 minutes.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Manage Kubernetes clusters declaratively using tools like Terraform combined with Hivelocity’s API.
• Built-in Scalability: Add or replace nodes with minimal manual effort, achieving cloud-like agility.

No compromises. Modern tools make scaling Kubernetes straightforward, even on bare metal.

Overcoming Kubernetes on Bare Metal Challenges

While bare metal offers unmatched benefits, challenges like provisioning, networking, and storage remain. The good news? These obstacles are surmountable with the right infrastructure solutions:

• Provisioning complexity is addressed through Kubernetes-native tools like Cluster API, enabling automation of server provisioning and updates.
• Networking limitations can be mitigated with tools like MetalLB and HAProxy for load balancing, paired with robust ingress controllers for traffic management.
• Resiliency concerns are minimized by building clusters with redundant hardware and implementing solutions like Ceph and Rook for dynamic storage provisioning.

Your Path Forward with Hivelocity

When you need raw power, cost predictability, and low-latency performance for Kubernetes at scale, bare metal is the answer. With tools like Hivelocity’s One-Click Application Deployments and support for Cluster API, deploying and managing Kubernetes on bare metal has never been easier.

Stop overpaying for subpar performance in the cloud. Reduce Kubernetes TCO today with Hivelocity. Deploy Now.

By skipping the hypervisor, enterprises can achieve the scalability of public clouds with the cost control and precision of dedicated hardware. Welcome to the future of Kubernetes. Welcome to bare metal.