Kubernetes, often abbreviated as K8s, is an open-source platform designed for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Originally developed by Google and now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Kubernetes has become the de facto standard for container orchestration.
Key Features and Components
Container Orchestration: Kubernetes automates the deployment, management, scaling, and networking of containers. It allows you to build application services that span multiple containers, schedule containers across a cluster, scale those containers, and manage their health over time[1][5].
Architecture: Kubernetes follows a client-server architecture. The control plane, or master node, manages the cluster and includes components like the kube-apiserver, etcd, kube-scheduler, and kube-controller-manager. Worker nodes run the actual applications and include components like kubelet, kube-proxy, and a container runtime (e.g., Docker)[2][3][7].
Pods and Services: The smallest deployable units in Kubernetes are called pods, which can contain one or more containers. Services in Kubernetes define a logical set of pods and a policy by which to access them, providing load balancing and service discovery[2][8][19].
Scalability and High Availability: Kubernetes supports horizontal scaling, allowing you to scale applications up or down based on demand. It also ensures high availability through features like replication controllers and self-healing mechanisms, which automatically replace failed containers[3][6][14].
Portability and Flexibility: Kubernetes is designed to run on various environments, including public clouds, private clouds, and on-premises data centers. This makes it highly portable and flexible, allowing applications to be moved across different environments without significant changes[4][15][17].
Declarative Configuration and Automation: Kubernetes uses declarative configuration to manage applications. Users define the desired state of the system, and Kubernetes works to maintain that state automatically. This includes automated rollouts and rollbacks, ...
