Kubernetes | Open Source Container Orchestration System

Kubernetes DevOps Tool

Go-based Platform For Managing Containerized Applications

Kubernetes also known as k8s or kube is an open source container orchestration tool that automates container deployment, scaling and management.

Overview

Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration tool, meant to run across a cluster. It is also known as kube or k8s. It schedules and automates containerized applications deployment, scaling, and management across multiple hosts. Kubernetes container orchestration software was originally developed and designed by engineers at Google. Then Google open-sourced the Kubernetes project in mid 2014 and now it is maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

kubernetes K8 open source container orchestration platform, orchestrates container runtime systems private, public and hybrid cloud applications. It is container centric orchestration tool to schedule and manage containers. Open source container orchestration kubernetes builds on 15 years of running Google’s containerized applications. It is free to use and can be downloaded from its repository on GitHub. Kubernetes open source software has 83.4K GitHub stars and 30.5k GitHub forks.

System Requirements

Installation requirements for building containerization and orchestration Cluster include:

  • Docker at least version 17.03 and configure CRI implementation
  • Kubernetes Go installed at your GOPATH
  • Kubeadm and Kubelet for starting pods and containers
  • Kubectl command line tool
  • gcc, make, jq and rsync packages
  • PyYAML to run verification tests in local environment
  • Docker CLI plugin docker-buildx
  • Disable SWAP for kubelet to work normally
  • Optional Google Cloud SDK to upload release on Google Storage
  • A running machine like Ubuntu 16.04+ with local Docker

Features

Some of the key features of Kubernetes or K8s container orchestration system are listed below:

  • Container grouping using pod
  • Automated rollouts and rollbacks
  • Service discovery and load balancing
  • Storage orchestration
  • Secret and configuration management
  • Automatic bin packing
  • Batch execution
  • IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack
  • Horizontal scaling
  • Self-healing
  • Run everywhere
  • Open Source

Installation Instructions

Install Kubernetes on Linux

Below installation steps assume that all the depency packages of Kubernetes are installed and up to date on your system. For Linux distributions setup, please follow the below installing steps. There are two options to build Kubernetes right away. It is possible to build Kubernetes using a local golang installation and there is also a build process that runs in a Docker container. Kubernetes development helper scripts require an up to date GNU development tools environment with commands:

    sudo apt update
    sudo apt install build-essential

Docker environment option simplifies initial set up and provides a very consistent build and test environment. After installing basic dependencies, If You have a working Go environment then use below commands:

    mkdir -p $GOPATH/src/k8s.io
    cd $GOPATH/src/k8s.io
    git clone https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes
    cd kubernetes
    make

If you have a working Docker environment then run the following commands:

    git clone https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes
    cd kubernetes
    make quick-release

To build the entire Kubernetes project, run verification tests and pass unit tests, use the below command:

    make all
    make verify
    make test

That’s it. Congratulations! You have successfully setup kubernetes for building k8s orchestration. Enjoy!

FAQs

What is Kubernetes used for?

Kubernetes is an open source container orchestration tool that is used to automate deployment, management and scaling of contained applications.

Is Kubernetes free?

Yes, kubernetes open source container orchestration system is free to use and download.

Is Kubernetes open source?

Yes, Kubernetes is open source container orchestration project. Kubernetes source code repository is available on Github.

What language is Kubernetes?

Kubernetes was designed and written by Google in Go programming language.

What is Kubernetes vs Docker?

Kubernetes is an open source container orchestration technology and it is meant to run across a cluster. Docker is a used for creating and running containers and runs on a single node. Kubernetes is a bit more complex but more extensive. While Docker Swarm is much faster but can’t do autoscaling.

Explore

In this article we discussed about one of the best container orchestration tools. To learn about other top container orchestration tools, please visit following page:

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