KPN Delivers a Sovereign, Self-Service Kubernetes Platform

KPN needed to deliver a robust Kubernetes platform to a diverse group of internal and external customers while maintaining complete sovereignty over their on-prem infrastructure. By partnering with Portworx, KPN empowered its customers with the freedom to run persistent storage workloads—including critical databases—supported by automated, self-service data protection and storage provisioning.

The Challenge

KPN serves a wide variety of customers—both internal KPN developers and external customers—on their Kubernetes platform. They need to be able to provide resilient persistent storage for demanding workloads, including databases. Their Kubernetes journey began using homegrown tools. However, this introduced painful, manual processes, especially for backup and restore, which required restoring entire Virtual Machines even for small amounts of data. This manual process could taking hour or a full day, and required customers to call the KPN team for assistance, creating operational bottlenecks.

Business Transformation

By integrating Portworx into their Kubernetes stack, KPN transformed their service delivery model into a true self-service experience. Customers no longer need to call the KPN team for data recovery; instead, they can perform restores themselves in minutes. This shift has not only improved operational efficiency but also provided KPN’s customers with the freedom to run diverse workloads with the confidence that their data is protected on sovereign infrastructure.

Delivering a Reliable Platform at Scale

Since deploying Portworx, KPN has streamlined its platform operations:

• Self-Service Storage: Customers manage their own backups and storage provisioning without KPN intervention.
• Rapid Restores: Reduced restore times from hours or days down to just minutes.
• Sovereign Infrastructure: Maintains complete control over the Kubernetes stack on-prem.
• Workload Freedom: Enables persistent storage for DBs and stateful apps both inside and outside the cluster.
• Enhanced Connectivity: Leverages a unified base setup that meets node, storage, and DR requirements for all customers.