The ability to pull container images quickly and reliably is critical for workload deployment and scaling. Pulling images from external registries can be slow, inefficient, and prone to failure due to network issues or downtime. In this session, we will explore different strategies for speeding up container image pulling in Kubernetes. We will compare the benefits and trade-offs of different image caching approaches, such as leveraging Harbor, preloading images on machine images, or adopting Spegel.

We will uncover how Spegel works seamlessly with Kubernetes to provide automatic local caching of images without explicit configuration, reducing the impact of external registry downtime and avoiding rate-limiting issues. Then, demonstrate how Harbor can be used as a pull through mirror. Attendees will learn to deploy these solutions to optimize their Kubernetes workloads, decrease pod startup times, and improve the performance of edge node deployments.