What Is Kubernetes?

Kubernetes is an open-source platform for managing containerized workloads and services. The name has its origins in the Greek language and translates roughly to pilot or helmsman. The platform, which was originally developed by a team at Google and then donated to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, has become one of the most popular for container management.

Why Containers Are Used

Containers are a popular tool for bundling and running applications. They make the process of provisioning resources easier which improves workload portability, deployment speed and fits better with the DevOps system. This helps developers modernize legacy applications, develop hybrid and multi-cloud implementations and build cloud-native applications. 

Reasons To Use Kubernetes for Container Management

The Kubernetes architecture helps manage containers and reduce downtime. Using this software adds resiliency to running distributed systems by managing the scaling and failover of applications and providing deployment patterns. The platform functions similarly to an operating system for cloud computing. It assists users with running software in a cloud environment by using Google's experience with running software at scale. Because the software became widely adopted after it was donated to CNCF, it can now be run on many different cloud-based and on-site platforms.

Features of Kubernetes

Kubernetes exposes containers using the DNS name or their own IP address. It can detect when traffic to a container is high and perform load balancing and network traffic distribution to keep the deployment stable.

Users can specify the desired state for deployed containers and Kubernetes can modify the actual state to match the desired state at a controlled rate. The software can also self-heal by restarting containers that fail, killing containers that aren't responding and replacing containers. It also avoids advertising containers to clients until they are ready to be served.

Users can automatically mount storage systems, such as public cloud providers or local storage drives. They can also let the software manage resource use by telling it how much CPU and memory each container needs. Sensitive information can be managed and stored by the program. Users can also deploy and update application configuration and secrets without the need to rebuild container images or expose secrets in the stack configuration. Have you ever considered ride sharing?

What Kubernetes Secrets Are

Kubernetes secrets are objects that are part of the platform's built-in security features. Secrets work similarly to the least privilege principle. However, instead of the focus being on limiting the access of each user, they focus on providing applications with only the data the applications need to function without allowing the applications to have access to the data that they don't need.

What Kubernetes Doesn't Do

Kubernetes is not an all-inclusive Platform as a Service system. It includes some of the same features that are common in PaaS software, such as load balancing, scaling and deployment, but these solutions are optional. It provides the building blocks but maintains user choice and flexibility. 

Kubernetes can run most applications that are capable of running in a container. It is designed to support multiple types of workloads including stateful, stateless and data-processing. There are no built-in application-level services, such as databases, data-processing frameworks, caches, middleware, or cluster storage systems. However, these components can be run on Kubernetes by using portable mechanisms. 

The software includes a declarative API that can be targeted by arbitrary forms of declarative specifications, instead of mandating a configuration language or system. It also doesn't utilize any comprehensive maintenance, management, machine configuration or self-healing systems. 

Kubernetes doesn't deploy source code or build applications. Delivery, deployment and continuous integration workflows are specified by organization preferences and cultures and technical requirements. The system provides some integrations and mechanisms to export and collect metrics, but does not dictate monitoring, logging or alerting solutions.

Kubernetes is a user-friendly, robust, powerful, extensible and resilient system for container management. It automates the process of container management without removing flexibility and control from users and its popularity and open-source nature make it one of the more compatible and adaptable platforms.