Kubernetes containers, fleet management, and applications

Training Guide

Kubernetes is one of the most dazzling attractions in the current circus of IT tools. Once developed by Google, it is now under the aegis of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and has therefore become a genuine community project.

However, Kubernetes (aka K8s, because of the eight letters between the K and the s) also seems to have driven a wedge into the normally closed ranks of administrators. Container advocates often can't imagine IT without containers and the right choice of orchestrator, whereas others have had little reason to consider Kubernetes until recently, which sometimes leads to a defiant reaction. Old habits can die hard.

This behavior is understandable, because the Kubernetes universe is now dominated by a kind of tech-speak that outsiders need to learn before diving in. Because the solution is constantly evolving – with custom resource definitions, providers, and replica sets – even many die-hard admins of the early days of K8s have lost track of what's what, or what is used when and for what purpose.

In this article, I rush to the aid of Kubernetes newcomers, providing a basic introduction to the topic that assumes no prior knowledge. In addition to the most important terms from the K8s bubble, a brief architecture overview of Kubernetes is also on the agenda, as is an explanation of the solution's most important functions from the user's perspective. If you haven't yet dealt with K8s, you'll get the knowledge you need here.

A Word Up Front: Containers

Before I get to Kubernetes, a few things need to be clarified about containers. Many terms and, above all, acronyms are difficult to understand if you have no prior experience of the subject.

Already known by most is that Kubernetes is, at its core, a solution that orchestrates containers across physical system boundaries; that is, it rolls them out and operates them together such that a

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