The K8s solution simplifies the deployment and maintenance of cloud-native apps on-premises or in the public cloud. It distributes application workloads across a Kubernetes cluster and automatically handles dynamic container networking requirements. Kubernetes also assigns storage and permanent volumes to running containers does automated scaling and works continually to keep applications in the proper condition, hence providing resilience.
Kubernetes Features
Kubernetes includes several capabilities that help orchestrate containers across many hosts, automate K8s cluster administration, and maximize resource use through better infrastructure utilization.
Important characteristics include:
- Auto-scaling:- Based on use, automatically scale containerized applications and their resources up or down.
- Management of the lifecycle:- Automate deployments and upgrades by being able to: Revert to prior versions and deployment can be paused and resumed.
- Model of declaration:- Declare the intended state, and K8s will work in the background to keep it and recover from any failures.
- Self-healing and resilience:- Application self-healing is enabled via auto-placement, auto restart, auto replication, and auto-scaling.
- Persistent storage:- Ability to mount and add storage dynamically.
- DevSecOps Support:- DevSecOps is a sophisticated security methodology that simplifies and automates container operations across clouds, integrates security across the container lifecycle, and allows teams to create secure, high-quality software more rapidly. Combining DevSecOps and Kubernetes principles boosts developer productivity.
What is the Kubernetes Architecture and How Does It Work?
Containers enclose an application in a portable and easy-to-deploy form. Containerized apps are supported by the Kubernetes architecture. A Kubernetes cluster is made up of at least one control plane and one worker node (typically a physical or virtual server). The control plane is responsible for two major tasks. It exposes the Kubernetes API via the API server and maintains the cluster’s nodes. The control plane makes cluster management choices and detects and responds to cluster events.
The Kubernetes Pod, which consists of one or more containers, is the smallest unit of execution for an application running on Kubernetes. Kubernetes Pods are performed on worker nodes.
Main Kubernetes Components
The main K8s components that are either part of the control plane or run on Kubernetes nodes
The control plane consists of four main components that are used to govern connections, manage nodes, and monitor the state of a Kubernetes cluster.
- Kube-apiserver:- The kube-apiserver, as the name implies, exposes the Kubernetes API.
- etcd:- A key-value store where all data relating to the Kubernetes cluster is stored.
- Kube-scheduler:- Looks for new Kubernetes Pods that have no assigned nodes and allocates them to a node for execution based on resource, policy, and ‘affinity’ parameters.
- Kube-controller-manager:- All control plane controller functions are compiled into a single binary: kube-controller-manager.
A K8s node has three major components:
- Kubelet:- An agent that makes sure that the necessary containers are running in a Kubernetes Pod.
Kube-proxy:- A network proxy that runs on each node in a cluster to maintain network rules and allow communication. - Container runtime:- The software responsible for running containers. Kubernetes supports any runtime that adheres to the Kubernetes CRI (Container Runtime Interface).
- Additional terms to be aware of include:
- Kubernetes service:- A Kubernetes service is a logical abstraction for a group of Kubernetes Pods which all perform the same function. Kubernetes services are assigned unique addresses which stay the same even as pod instances come and go.
Features of Kubernetes
The Kubernetes platform has grown in popularity due to a number of significant benefits:
- Portability:- Containers are portable in a variety of settings, from virtual to bare metal. Because Kubernetes is supported by all major public clouds, you may run containerized apps on K8s in a variety of scenarios.
- Integration and adaptability:- Kubernetes may be extended to operate with the solutions you already use, such as logging, monitoring, and alerting systems. The Kubernetes community is working on a number of open source solutions that complement Kubernetes, resulting in a diverse and rapidly expanding ecosystem.
- Cost effectiveness:- Because of Kubernetes’ intrinsic resource efficiency, automatic scaling, and flexibility to execute workloads where they deliver the most value, you have complete control over your IT cost.
- Scalability:- Native cloud apps scale horizontally. Kubernetes employs “auto-scaling,” which involves automatically spinning up more container instances and scaling out in response to demand.
- API-based:- The REST API is the foundation of Kubernetes. Everything in the Kubernetes ecosystem is controllable via programming.
- CI/CD has been simplified:- CI/CD is a DevOps methodology that automates application development, testing, and deployment to production environments. Enterprises are using Kubernetes with CI/CD to build scalable CI/CD pipelines that adjust to load dynamically.