At DevsOperative, we recognize the value of offering our customers an all-inclusive Kubernetes support subscription, allowing them to capitalize on the robust functionalities of Kubernetes, while we handle the intricate technicalities. Learn more about this service here.
Understanding Kubernetes
Kubernetes is a powerful, flexible, and open-source platform designed for managing containerized workloads and services. It simplifies both declarative configuration and automation, making it a preferred choice for many organizations.
| What is Kubernetes? | Why is it Important? |
|---|---|
| An open-source platform for managing containerized workloads and services. | Facilitates declarative configuration and automation for orchestrating containers. |
| Portable and extensible. | Simplifies the management of diverse workloads and rapid scaling. |
| Large and fast-growing ecosystem. | Provides wide-ranging services, support, and tools. |
The Evolution of Kubernetes
In order to fully grasp the value of Kubernetes, it is vital to understand its evolution and how it fits into the current landscape of deployment methodologies.
Traditional Deployment Era: Organizations initially ran applications on physical servers. However, the inability to define resource boundaries for applications on these servers led to resource allocation problems. A potential solution was to run each application on a different physical server, but this led to underutilization of resources and high maintenance costs.
Virtualized Deployment Era: Virtualization allowed for running multiple Virtual Machines (VMs) on a single physical server's CPU, solving many of the resource allocation problems of the traditional era. Each VM is a full machine running all components, including its own operating system, on top of the virtualized hardware. This technology allowed for better resource utilization, scalability, reduced hardware costs, and more.
Container Deployment Era: Containers further improved on VMs by sharing the Operating System (OS) among the applications, resulting in what are considered lightweight VMs. Containers have their own filesystem, CPU share, memory, process space, and more. Due to their decoupling from the underlying infrastructure, they can be transported across clouds and OS distributions.
The advantages of containers include:
- Agile application creation and deployment
- Continuous development, integration, and deployment
- Dev and Ops separation of concerns
- Environmental consistency across development, testing, and production
- Cloud and OS distribution portability
- Application-centric management
- Resource isolation
- High resource utilization
The Role of Kubernetes
While containers offer numerous benefits, managing them in a production environment can be challenging. Kubernetes enters the scene as a comprehensive framework for running distributed systems resiliently. It handles scaling and failover for your applications, manages deployment patterns, and more. Kubernetes offers features such as:
- Service discovery and load balancing
- Storage orchestration
- Automated rollouts and rollbacks
- Automatic bin packing
- Self-healing mechanisms
- Secret and configuration management
However, it's worth noting that Kubernetes isn't a traditional all-inclusive PaaS (Platform as a Service) system. Although it provides many common PaaS features, it also allows user choice and flexibility where it matters. Kubernetes doesn't limit the types of applications supported, does not deploy source code or build your applications, and doesn't dictate logging, monitoring, or alerting solutions.
At DevsOperative, we recognize these nuances and are equipped to help you navigate the complexities of Kubernetes, making it a seamless part of your business operations. Our comprehensive Kubernetes support subscription is designed to help you take full advantage of this powerful platform without the associated management headaches.
Remember, the future is here, and Kubernetes is leading the way in the container deployment era. We, at DevsOperative, are here to help you embrace this future and propel your business to greater heights. Check out our Kubernetes support subscription here.
FAQ
What is Kubernetes?
Kubernetes is a container orchestrator. It is responsible for scheduling pods and providing necessary components such as network and storage.
What is OpenShift?
OpenShift is a hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes, developed by Red Hat. OpenShift brings together tested and trusted services to provide a complete cloud solution. DevsOperative is a Red Hat Partner so we are fully prepared to answer your questions on OpenShift.
Kubernetes vs Docker - What's the difference?
Docker is a container runtime and was the original tool used by Kubernetes. When Kubernetes "orchestrates" containers it is interacting with a container runtime on different nodes. Docker is not a cloud platform and no longer the default container runtime used by Kubernetes.
What is kubectl?
Kubectl is the command line interface used to interact with Kubernetes. We also recommend https://k9scli.io/.
What is k8s?
k8s is an abbreviation of Kubernetes, formed by replacing the 8 letters between the k and s.