Berkshire Grey gains freedom and improves standardization at the edge

Prior to Talos Linux, the team at Berkshire Grey ran Kubernetes clusters on a mix of Flatcar and CoreOS. Achieving the expected node state depended on custom automation and scripts (e.g., Ansible). Every step had to be designed, maintained, and tested in-house, making upgrades coordination-heavy across many customer sites.

With limited centralized configuration control, manual SSH changes could accumulate, creating configuration divergence over time. Security questions–often hundreds of questions–were also time-consuming.

“Talos handles a lot of that under the hood, and we can simply keep one configuration file and use JSON native patching. It really makes the process very streamlined and easy.”

Alexander Alves, DevOps Engineer, Berkshire Grey

Berkshire Grey found that the operating system’s clean design and focus on Kubernetes-native operations aligned perfectly with their needs. Talos Linux became the foundation for their bare-metal edge clusters, powering the robotic control systems and ML workloads.

Because Talos Linux clusters are defined declaratively through machine configuration files, upgrades are now done in place with simple configuration patches. This includes updates to the OS, Kubernetes version, and GPU drivers, all of which are handled in a single unified workflow. Additionally, the immutability of Talos Linux eliminates the risk of drift and makes it easier to audit and validate configurations.

Sidero Support further simplified work for Berkshire Grey, as the teams collaborate over Slack, ensuring any bugs are quickly fixed. As Brian McCarthy, VP Engineering, DevOps, and Infrastructure, says, “It gives us the confidence to stand behind deploying it to our customers.”

The ability to deploy clusters quickly gave the internal hardware testing team the agility they needed. By physically rerouting the robot’s network connection to the new cluster, the team could begin testing in under two hours, shaving time off the validation process.

Security audits also became easier. Talos Linux enables frequent updates and limits drift, enabling the team to more easily demonstrate SOC 2 Type II compliance, reducing related manual work and enhancing customer trust.

More importantly, Talos Linux reinforced the team’s long-standing commitment to infrastructure as code, helping the company scale its robotic systems with precision and agility.