Just a single (or bunch of independent) 'node'(s) though right?
To me podman/systems/quadlet could just as well be an implementation detail of how a k8s node runs a container (the.. CRI I suppose, in the lingo?) - it's not replacing the orchestration/scheduling abstraction over nodes that k8s provides. The 'here are my machines capable of running podman-systemd files, here is the spec I want to run, go'.
My servers are pets not cattle. They are heterogeneous and collected over the years. If I used k8s I'd end up having to mostly pin services to a specific machine anyway. I don't even have a rack: it's just a variety of box shapes stacked on a wire shelf.
At some point I do want to create a purpose built rack for my network equipment and maybe setup some homogenous servers for running k8s or whatever, but it's not a high priority.
I like the idea of podman-systemd being an impl detail of some higher level orchestration. Recent versions of podman support template units now, so in theory you wouldn't even need to create duplicate units to run more than one service.
To me podman/systems/quadlet could just as well be an implementation detail of how a k8s node runs a container (the.. CRI I suppose, in the lingo?) - it's not replacing the orchestration/scheduling abstraction over nodes that k8s provides. The 'here are my machines capable of running podman-systemd files, here is the spec I want to run, go'.