Sharing experience and building for people

Hola, I’m Alik Khilazhev, AKA alikhil on the internet. I'm a:

Cloud Infrastructure Engineer

I have 9+ years of experience in infrastructure development, DevOps and SRE practices. I specialize in Kubernetes and the surrounding cloud-native ecosystem.
Software Engineer

I enjoy building platform services and tools that empower others. I'm always on the lookout for challenging problems to solve like puzzles by writing clean, efficient code in Go, Python, or whatever language the task calls for.
Open Source enthusiast

I'm passionate about open source software and enjoy building complex, resilient systems by combining various open source tools—like playing with LEGO. I also contribute to projects like Terragrunt and Updatecli, among others, to give back to the community.
and Tech Geek

I'm super curious about technology and love diving deep into systems just for fun. I absolutely love tinkering, experimenting, and exploring the world of self-hosting.

You can also find me at the links below.

Why Graceful Shutdown Matters in Kubernetes^[Pinned]

Have you ever deployed a new version of your app in Kubernetes and noticed errors briefly spiking during rollout? Many teams do not even realize this is happening, especially if they are not closely monitoring their error rates during deployments. There is a common misconception in the Kubernetes world that bothers me. The official Kubernetes documentation and most guides claim that “if you want zero downtime upgrades, just use rolling update mode on deployments”. I have learned the hard way that this simply it is not true - rolling updates alone are NOT enough for true zero-downtime deployments. And it is not just about deployments. Your pods can be terminated for many other reasons: scaling events, node maintenance, preemption, resource constraints, and more. Without proper graceful shutdown handling, any of these events can lead to dropped requests and frustrated users. In this post, I will share what I have learned about implementing proper graceful shutdown in Kubernetes. I will show you exactly what happens behind the scenes, provide working code examples, and back everything with real test results that clearly demonstrate the difference. ...

What is a CDN and Why It Matters?

With the rapid growth of GenAI solutions and the continuous launch of new applications, understanding the fundamental challenges and solutions of the web is becoming increasingly important. One of the core challenges is delivering content quickly to the end user. This is where a CDN comes into play. ...

Kubernetes In-Place Pod Resize

About six years ago, while operating a large Java-based platform in Kubernetes, I noticed a recurring problem: our services required significantly higher CPU and memory during application startup. Heavy use of Spring Beans and AutoConfiguration forced us to set inflated resource requests and limits just to survive bootstrap, even though those resources were mostly unused afterwards. This workaround never felt right. As an engineer, I wanted a solution that reflected the actual lifecycle of an application rather than its worst moment. ...

Contributing to Open Source: Why It Matters and How to Start

Whether you’re curious about open source or wondering how to make a meaningful impact, this post guides you through the process. You’ll learn why contributing is important, discover the different ways to get involved, and find practical steps to take your first contribution. ...

kubectl-find - UNIX-find-like plugin to find resources and perform action on them

Recently, I have developed a plugin for kubectl inspired by UNIX find utility to find and perform action on resources. And few days ago number of stars in the repo reached 50! I think it’s a good moment to tell more about the project. ...