Orchestrating Microservices Across Hybrid Clouds with Kubernetes Federation

Abstract

 The proliferation of microservices and the increasing adoption of hybrid cloud strategies have introduced complex challenges in managing distributed workloads across multiple environments. Kubernetes Federation offers a compelling approach to orchestrating microservices across heterogeneous cloud infrastructures by enabling unified control, policy propagation, and service discovery across federated clusters. This paper investigates the practical and architectural considerations involved in implementing Kubernetes Federation in hybrid cloud scenarios. It outlines the architecture of Federation v2, emphasizing its components, capabilities, and limitations. Real-world use cases such as cross-cloud load balancing, disaster recovery, compliance enforcement, and multi-region deployments are explored to highlight the benefits of federated orchestration. An implementation framework is presented, including setup, deployment pipelines, and observability mechanisms.

The paper also presents performance evaluations based on metrics like latency, availability, and failover efficiency, supported by empirical results from simulated environments. Key challenges such as network complexity, security considerations, and operational overhead are discussed in detail. The study concludes with recommendations for optimizing hybrid cloud operations using Kubernetes Federation, along with future research directions including integration with service meshes and autonomous orchestration. By bridging the gap between isolated clusters and unified governance, Kubernetes Federation emerges as a critical enabler of scalable, resilient, and policy-compliant microservice orchestration in hybrid cloud ecosystems.