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What is Kubernetes ​

Running a container on a laptop is relatively simple. Deploying and connecting containers across multiple hosts, scaling them, deploying applications without downtime, and service discovery among several aspects can be complex.

Kubernetes addresses those challenges from the start with a set of primitives and a powerful open and extensible API. The ability to add new objects and operators allows easy customization for various production needs. The ability to add multiple schedulers and multiple API servers adds to this customization.

According to the kubernetes website, Kubernetes is:

An open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

A key aspect of Kubernetes is that it builds on 15 years of experience at Google in a project called Borg.

Google's infrastructure started reaching high scale before virtual machines became pervasive in the datacenter, and containers provided a fine-grained solution for packing clusters efficiently. Efficiency in using clusters and managing distributed applications has been at the core of Google challenges.

NOTE:

In Greek, κνβερνητης means the Helmsman, or pilot of the ship. Keeping with the maritime theme of Docker containers, Kubernetes is the pilot of a ship of containers. Due to the difficulty in pronouncing the name, many will use a nickname, K8s, as Kubernetes has eight letters between K and S. The nickname is said like Kate's.

Kubernetes can be an integral part of Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), as it offers many of the necessary components.

  • Continous Integration A consistent way to build and test software. Deploying new packages with code written each day, or every hour, instead of quarterly. Tools like Helm and Jenkins are often part of this with Kubernetes.

  • Continuous Delivery An automated way to test and deploy software into various environments. Kubernetes handles the lifecycle of containers and connection of infrastructure resources to make rolling updates and rollbacks easy, among other deployment schemes.

There are several options and possible configurations when building a CI/CD pipeline. Tools such as Jenkins, Spinnaker, GitHub, GitLab and Helm, among others, may be part of your particular pipeline.