DevOps-Tools

Kubernetes - Introduction

Anil Radarapu's photo
Anil Radarapu
·

2 min read

Table of contents

Kubernetes (often abbreviated as K8s) is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Originally developed by Google, Kubernetes is now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).

Key Features of Kubernetes:

  1. Container Orchestration:

    • Automatically schedules and manages containers across a cluster of nodes.

  2. Scalability:

    • Supports horizontal scaling of applications to handle increased workloads.

  3. Self-Healing:

    • Restarts failed containers, replaces unresponsive nodes, and reschedules containers automatically.

  4. Load Balancing and Service Discovery:

    • Balances traffic across multiple containers and provides DNS names for services.

  5. Automated Rollouts and Rollbacks:

    • Facilitates seamless application updates and rollbacks in case of issues.

  6. Storage Orchestration:

    • Allows applications to mount and use storage systems such as AWS EBS, NFS, and others.

  7. Infrastructure Abstraction:

    • Works with various underlying infrastructure platforms, including on-premise data centers, public clouds (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), or hybrid setups.

  8. Declarative Configuration:

    • Uses YAML or JSON configuration files to define the desired state of the cluster.

  9. Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Support:

    • Enables consistent application management across multiple environments.

Components of Kubernetes:

  1. Master Node Components:

    • API Server: Exposes Kubernetes API for cluster communication.

    • Controller Manager: Ensures the cluster’s desired state matches the actual state.

    • Scheduler: Assigns workloads (pods) to nodes.

    • etcd: Key-value store that maintains cluster state.

  2. Worker Node Components:

    • Kubelet: Ensures containers are running in a pod.

    • Kube-proxy: Manages network communication.

    • Container Runtime: Runs the containers (e.g., Docker, containerd).

Common Use Cases:

  • Microservices management.

  • Continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD).

  • High availability and fault tolerance.

  • Multi-cloud and hybrid cloud strategies.

Kubernetes is widely used because it simplifies managing complex containerized environments, making it a critical tool in modern DevOps practices.

KubernetescontainersOrchestration