Introduction to Kubernetes
In this course, you’ll learn the meaning of Kubernetes, its benefits, basic concepts, and architecture
Full Service Ownership for Developers
Hands-On Course:
Kubernetes 101 for Developers: Install K8s and build containers
What is Kubernetes?
At a high level, building cloud native applications follows a flow where you use your preferred programming language to build the application, and then you containerize that application before deploying it to production to make it accessible to your users.
Now, imagine if this cloud native application was made up of 5 containers, and for some reason, these 5 containers fail or stop running, thereby preventing your users from accessing the application. In this case, you’d have to rush back to your computer, figure out what’s wrong, fix it and then restart the containers. There’s also a chance that you wouldn’t be aware of this failure until 6 hours later because you were away from your computer. Regardless of how this goes, you never want to be in a situation where your users can no longer access your application. And that’s where Kubernetes comes in!
Build > Containerize > Orchestrate
Kubernetes is a container orchestrator that helps you automate, deploy, scale, and manage your containerized applications. For example, if a container fails, Kubernetes will restart it, and if a container isn’t responding to your user-defined health check, Kubernetes can kill it and stop showing it to your users until it’s ready to serve traffic again.
What are the benefits of using Kubernetes?
While requiring a shift in mindset and developer experience, Kubernetes enables:
- Containerized workloads and increased automation
- The write-once, run-everywhere concept and the elimination of complex dependencies or incompatibilities in or across different systems
- Shared responsibility for managing deployments (operational activities become developer responsibilities)
- Easier deployment through fully automated rollouts and rollbacks with fine-grained observability and no downtime/minimal end-user disruption
- Faster feedback because it supports continuous code deployment and near-instant feedback