Data Backup Digest

The popularity of Kubernetes has exploded over the past few years, ultimately driving the name from complete obscurity to mainstream appeal within the IT sector in virtually no time at all. As much of its growth coincides with the newfound appeal of containers, Kubernetes is increasingly seen across cloud frameworks of every type; including public, private, and hybrid environments.

But what exactly is Kubernetes and, perhaps more importantly, how can it benefit your IT operations in the years to come?

Introducing Kubernetes

Often referred to as kube or k8s, Kubernetes has been on the scene since mid-2014. Originally pioneered by engineers with Google, Kubernetes is a open source platform that automates operations within Linux-based containers. In short, it provides a means of easily managing Linux container clusters for greater efficiency and accessibility.

The platform has become so popular that it has spurred it's very own convention – KubeCon – which attracts thousands of guests on an annual basis. It's an event that attracts tech enthusiasts from every sector of IT – including developers and companies that are eager to show off new breakthroughs.

Apart from Google, the development of Kubernetes was initially spurred on by Red Hat. The platform became a part of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation in 2015 and has been a mainstay in the industry ever since.

How Can Kubernetes Help Your Business?

Kubernetes has a number of key advantages, including:

- Enough scalability to cover operations across the entire planet: Kubernetes was designed with many of the same fundamentals that give Google the ability to operate billions of containers every single week. Users should have no problem with scalability, regardless of their intended applications.

- The ability to work in nearly any environment: Kubernetes supports hybrid, public, and private cloud architectures. As such, it provides the freedom, flexibility, and adaptability needed by today's businesses.

According to their official website, Kubernetes boasts several key features, including:

- Automatic service discovery and workload balancing: Since Kubernetes automatically assigns DNS names and IP addresses for each container, there's no need for additional service discovery.

- Automatic binpacking: Containers are automatically placed according to their resource requirements as well as other specific filters.

- Storage orchestration: Storage systems can be automatically mounted, including local drives, public formats like AWS or GCP, and NAS devices of varying file formats.

- Self-healing: Failed containers are automatically restarted or rescheduled and nothing is presented to the client until it passes all system health checks.

- Automatic rollouts and rollbacks: Progressive rollouts are automated both to maximize efficiency and to minimize the overall impact on system health. In the event of an emergency, Kubernetes automatically initiates the rollback process on your behalf.

- Secret and configuration management: Kubernetes give your developers the ability to deploy updates without the need to rebuild the entire image. Moreover, it protects any stack configuration secrets you might not want to unveil.

- Batch execution: Kubernetes is able to manage batch workloads, too. This is handy when addressing failed containers.

To find out more information on Kubernetes, please visit their official website at {{https://kubernetes.io/|kubernetes.io}}.