# Reliable Cross-Cloud Kubernetes With Architect

> Source: https://loopholelabs.io/blog/reliable-cross-cloud-kubernetes

By Shivansh Vij, published 2025-05-07.

Live migrate entire Kubernetes clusters - stateful workloads included - between AWS, Azure, GCP and bare metal with zero downtime.

### What if you could just pick up a Kubernetes cluster, and move it?

At [KubeCon North America 2024](https://loophole.sh/kc2024) we demo'd just that: live-migrating a Kubernetes cluster
(running a stateful [Valkey](https://valkey.io/) database) from **AWS to GCP to Azure** in *seconds* - and with **zero
downtime or client interruptions**.

[Felicitas Pojtinger](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pojntfx), who's the Head of R\&D at Loophole Labs
(and our resident KVM whisperer), gave a talk that explored how to build Kubernetes clusters that leverage spot
instances and then how to move that cluster in its entirety across cloud providers and even to on-premise infrastructure.

A link to a video of the talk is [below](#building-reliable-cross-cloud-kubernetes-clusters-on-spot-instances) and we’ve
also posted Felicitas’ [full notes](https://github.com/loopholelabs/architect-talks) from the talk to our github repo.

### Architect

In order to migrate complex infrastructure environments like entire Kubernetes clusters, Architect employs a combination
of open-source projects that, when used together, allow for seamless, zero-downtime live migrations. Felicitas explains
how each project works and how they come together to deliver Architect, the underlying project used in the demo.

At its core, Architect uses:

* [PVM](https://github.com/loopholelabs/linux-pvm-ci) - Pagetable-based Virtual Machine (repo): This kernel patch delivers page table virtualization and enables running VMs within VMs without hardware acceleration.
* [Firecracker](https://github.com/loopholelabs/firecracker): A hypervisor providing consistent VM behavior across different cloud platforms via CPU templates. Its snapshot and restore features are crucial for portability.
* [Silo](https://github.com/loopholelabs/silo): An open-source storage engine optimized for tracking changes in VM snapshots, facilitating rapid migration between hosts.
* [Drafter](https://github.com/loopholelabs/drafter): A framework that integrates PVM and Firecracker, offering tools for VM management, networking, health checks, snapshotting, and packaging.
* [Conduit](https://github.com/loopholelabs/architect-networking): Enables live migration of network connections alongside VM state, ensuring zero downtime during migrations.


### Building Reliable Cross-Cloud Kubernetes Clusters on Spot Instances

The talk is available on the [CNCF youtube channel](https://loophole.sh/kc2024):

[Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGUN7aUBGTU)

If you want to know more please join our [Discord](https://loopholelabs.io/discord) or follow us on [LinkedIn](https://loopholelabs.io/linkedin), [Twitter](https://loopholelabs.io/x),
and [GitHub](https://loopholelabs.io/github).