A Simple Guide To Kubernetes

Imagine using full-sized bed sheets in every room of your (hypothetical) mansion. Some beds would be fine, but the king-sized bed would look awful. What if you could devise a way so you could manage each room based on its specifications without issuing a standard order? That’s how containerization works – it packages all the necessary libraries and files for an application (bed sheets) to function on any infrastructure (rooms).

Kubernetes, also known as K8s, is an open-source system known for automating the deployment, scaling and management of applications using virtual containers. The name Kubernetes originates from Greek and means “helmsman” or “pilot.” If you’re wondering about the 8 in the name, it comes from counting the eight letters between the "K" and the "s" in Kubernetes. #That’sGr8

When Google open-sourced the Kubernetes project in 2014, little did they know that it would become the standard for containerization. Today, it is known as a reliable, portable, scalable and open-source platform to manage containerized workloads.

Let’s take a closer look at Kubernetes; its history, working, benefits and future!
 

Understanding Kubernetes

The Kubernetes project was originally developed by Google but is currently maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. It is still an open-source orchestration tool used to automate the deployment, scaling and management of container software. This is why businesses rely on it to build virtual building blocks (called "primitives") that help them deploy, maintain and scale applications irrespective of the device or Operating System being used. How cool is that!

It may surprise you to know that Kubernetes is the second-fastest growing project in the history of open-source software after Linux. As businesses expanded the scope of software deployments, they also needed a way to ensure their apps and services could perform across a diverse set of deployment hosts – and Kubernetes was their knight in shining armor. As of 2021, the number of Kubernetes engineers stood at 3.9 million!

You can bet that since its inception in 2014, Kubernetes has undergone many changes. So, let’s briefly look at its evolution.
 

Evolution And Origins Of Kubernetes

Before we talk about Kubernetes and when it came into the picture, we need to understand the challenges of software deployment that led to containerization:
 

Traditional Deployment Era

Initially, businesses used physical servers to run their apps and there was no way to specify the resource limits for individual applications. For instance, if several applications were running on a single physical server, there would be times when one application would use up most of the resources while the others underperformed.
 

Virtualized Deployment Era

Virtualization solutions were introduced to allow users to run multiple Virtual Machines (VMs) on a single physical server. It allowed applications to be isolated between VMs which provided security and reliability as resources of one application could not be accessed by another.
 

Container Deployment Era

Containers were similar to virtual machines (VMs) but they had more isolated qualities that allowed them to share the application host's Operating System. As containers were detached from the underlying infrastructure, they were more portable and had their own CPU, memory, processing space, etc.

In the context of these developments, let’s see how Kubernetes was created!
 

2003-2004

Google introduced the Borg System, a large-scale internal cluster management system. It could run thousands of tasks from thousands of diverse applications using managing clusters.

2014

Google then introduced Kubernetes, an open-source version of Borg. In July of the same year, names such as Microsoft, RedHat, IBM and Docker joined the Kubernetes community.

2015

Kubernetes v1.0 was released.

2016

Helm, the package manager of Kubernetes was released. However, the highlight was the release of Pokémon GO! Kubernetes Case Study, which made Pokémon GO the largest Kubernetes deployment ever.

2018

Soon, more businesses adopted Kubernetes as their standard. Google’s Kubernetes Engine 1.10 became available to the public and Amazon EKS was launched to simplify building, operating and managing Kubernetes clusters for organizations.

These developments meant that businesses could focus on building their applications instead of setting up a containerized managed cluster from scratch. Now, let’s get to the meat of the matter – how Kubernetes actually works!
 

How Does Kubernetes Work?

Kubernetes provides businesses with an automated framework to run their distributed systems with resilience and high uptime. It not only helps deploy virtual containers but also manages them. For instance, it takes care of scaling the applications and services when the traffic to a container is high. To ensure a stable deployment of the application, Kubernetes can balance and dynamically redistribute the traffic. Like a traffic cop for the consumers driving to your application - pretty cool, right?

Kubernetes also allows you to customize each container deployment. It helps you set how much CPU and memory (RAM) each container needs for a task. Moreover, it restarts/replaces older containers and even deletes containers that don't align with your defined strategy. In a nutshell, it automates the scaling, management and remediation of your containerized deployments.

This naturally comes with many benefits!
 

Benefits Of Using Kubernetes

Yes – but that’s just one of the advantages of using Kubernetes. Here are some others:
 

• Higher Cost Savings

  Businesses that use Kubernetes can streamline resource management. Manual processes are automated with Kubernetes as it provides and deploys containers for the best use of resources. Also, apps/services can run with minimal downtime and perform consistently leading to less maintenance and remediation costs.

• Increased DevOps efficiency

  Creating and using Kubernetes containers that contain everything your application needs to run is simpler, faster and more efficient than creating several virtual machines (VMs). This leads to faster software development and optimized deployment times.

• Multi-cloud Deployments

  Workloads can be distributed among several cloud hosts or can exist in a single cloud. An advantage of Kubernetes is that it enables the rapid transfer of containerized applications from on-premises infrastructure to hybrid cloud, public cloud or private cloud infrastructures without sacrificing functionality or performance.

• Automation Of Deployment And Scalability

  Kubernetes can help schedule and automate container deployment across multiple points, whether on the public cloud or physical on-premises systems, based on requirements. This automated scaling of deployments allows IT teams and developers to meet demands faster.

You may think that since Kubernetes allows us to achieve lower costs, faster software development and automated deployment, it’s the best thing out there. Yet we’re here to tell you that it is going to be better in the future – read on to know what we mean!
 

What’s The Future Of Kubernetes?

The term ‘serverless’ technologies is quickly catching on, right? Since it is a vendor-based enterprise service, it is seen as going in the opposite direction to Kubernetes. However, Kubernetes, being open source, will have a place in software deployment processes of the future. Most enterprises will still rely on containerization to deploy services/applications and integrate new features on a short timeline.

Moreover, 22% of businesses that use Kubernetes say they plan to use it in the future, based on a Cloud Cover survey. As an open-source project, Kubernetes is likely to expand and innovate in the near future. It will address software deployment needs and challenges in the future as it does now!
 

Conclusion

That’s how we feel about containers – virtual and physical!

Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration, management and automation software. It automates containerization operations and has built-in capabilities for rolling out updates, scaling up and down, monitoring applications, etc. to meet changing demands. If you deploy apps and services in the cloud, on-premises or across various ecosystems, you need Kubernetes to keep things managed and automated. We hope this article covers everything about Kubernetes you wanted to know!