Introduction to Kubernetes – What is Kubernetes

Last updated on March 8th, 2023 at 03:55 pm.

Introduction to Kubernetes - What is Kubernetes

What is Kubernetes

Kuberntetes ( K8s) is an open source tool for managing containerized applications. In managing containers, it enables configuration and automation of container deployments.

Some things Kubernetes can do:

  • Orchestration and management of containers.
  • Auto-scaling deployments
  • Load balancing 
  • Managing configurations
  • Networking container deployments

Kubernetes is shortened as K8s, representing the 8 letters between K and S , hence K8S.

What is a container / containerized application?

A container is a packaged application along with all its dependencies. A running container is spun from an image. Let’s say you need to run WordPress, a WordPress container will include a Linux OS, the server application such as Apache or Nginx, PHP processor and MySQL could be in the same or a different container.

In the case of Docker, a running container will also include your files ( wp-content ) and a persistent volume to ensure you can reuse your data when you spin up a new container from the WordPress image.

What is an image?

An image is the important building block for Kubernetes pods and Docker containers. An image is the actual packaged entity. It can be uploaded to docker hub or any other private repository of your choice. 

You will usually create your image from a Dockerfile or use preexisting images from docker hub.

Once you have your image, it is what you will run inside a container or Kubernetes. Images are standardized, therefore, an image once created is usually very portable since it can run on any container runtime environment. 

Read more about docker containers here.

In conclusion of this part, what is Kubernetes? K8s is an application you can use to automate your container deployment and container management. Say you have your WordPress image ready, you can easily deploy it on Kubernetes. It can be deployed securely, load balanced across different nodes (virtual machines) and set up to scale up or down automatically. K8s consist of different parts that make it work.

Why is Kubernetes important

  • Deployment scalability: You can configure Kubernetes to automatically scale vertically or horizontally based on resource demand.
  • High Availability : Kubernetes provides instant recovery for failing or failed pods by spinning up new pods. In K8s, applications run in pods.
  • Managing resources: It will allocate and manage resources as needed. Pods need to run efficiently, kubernetes enhances this by managing resources.
  • Deployments automation: Once you have your images, K8s can be used to automate all forms of deployment.
  • Logging and monitoring of deployments: Logging and monitoring tools are available to help you debug and fix any deployment issues.
  • Security : Kubernetes has different security tools built in. It is up to you as the administrator /engineer to apply the recommended security settings for a secure cluster.
  • Portability : Kubernetes was created to run containers, and the underlying philosophy of containers is hugely based on portability and consistency. Whether you are running a self-managed Kubernetes or Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), or Amazon EKS, or any other cheap managed Kubernetes hosting, it doesn’t matter.  You can simply pack up your configuration files and move them to the next K8s provider.
  • Affordable costs: Don’t get me wrong, running Kubernetes isn’t cheap per se. However, the idea that you can use the one cluster to run all your microservices and apps, can end up being cost friendlier than having to deploy each instance in their own virtual machine.

Related: 5 Cheapest Managed Kubernetes Hosting

The next part of this introduction to Kubernetes will cover: brief history of Kubernetes and its evolution.

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