A Complete Guide to Kubernetes

Working with large amounts of data and ensuring their proper end-to-end utilization requires a lot of programming tools that aid in their proper implementation. Edureify, the best AI Learning App has come up with a lot of informative articles that help students learn and understand the different programming languages and programming tools. With the best online coding Bootcamp, students can sharpen their coding skills easily.

In this article, Edureify will talk about another useful toolkit, Kubernetes. Read on to know more and learn the use of Kubernetes with the best coding Bootcamp of Edureify.

What is Kubernetes?

Etymologically speaking, Kubernetes comes from the Greek language which means a helmsman or pilot. In terms of programming, Kubernetes, also known as ‘K8s’ is a software that manages, scales, and maintains multiple container workloads in their desired states automatically. The 8 in ‘K8s’ stands for the number of letters between K and S.

Kubernetes is an open-source platform designed by Google in 2014. It is extensible and portable that is used to automate the deployment and scaling operations across clusters of nodes of the container-based applications. Kubernetes helps in the automation of container management operational tasks. It has built-in commands that enable deploying applications, bringing desired changes to the application, analyzing the application to find any further changes needed, monitoring it, and more.

Inspiration from Borg

Kubernetes was built as a software of Google that was inspired by Borg, Google’s internal cluster management system. Kubernetes is an enhanced version of Borg that aids in managing the long-running processes and batch jobs.

With the advancement in the use of Kubernetes, there are further development of many cloud services that are based on the Kubernetes infrastructure that are deployed as the platform-providing service. The technique behind the working of these applications is to work as a client-server architecture and works with many container tools like Docker.

Features of Kubernetes

The following are some of the important features of Kubernetes that enable it to be orchestrated as containers across multiple hosts that help in auto-managing the K8 clusters and better utilize the infrastructure and resources. The features of Kubernetes are-

• Auto-scaling- Kubernetes can automatically scale the containerized applications along with their resources with the analysis of their usage.
• Pod- Pod is a deployment unit in Kubernetes that has a single Internet protocol address.
• Lifecycle Management- Kubernetes can automatically deploy and update the management of a product using the automated Rollout and Rollback features.
  • Rollout and Rollback- This feature enables the distribution of changes and updates in an application. If an error is detected in the system, then it automatically rectifies the situation.
• Persistent Storage- This is one of the most important features of Kubernetes. Persistent Storage is a property unique to Kubernetes that helps in storing data. The data stored cannot be lost even after the Pod is rescheduled or killed. Kubernetes supports dynamic data storage systems to store data. Some of them are Google Compute Engine’s Persistent Disks (GCE PD) or Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS). NFS or GFS distributive file systems are also provided.
• Declarative Model- Once the user declares the desired state, the K8s keeps working in the background to maintain that desired state and also works to recover from any failures.
• Automatic Bin Packing- Kubernetes allows the users to mention the maximum and minimum resources of computers for their containers.
• Service Discovery and Load Balancing- To address the diverse needs, Kubernetes supports a variety of internal and external load balancing. The software assigns the IP addresses and a name of DNS for a set of containers.
• Resilience and Self-Healing- Some containers that fail during the execution process, Kubernetes restarts them automatically. This is a very vital role of Kubernetes. It makes the process of auto-placement, auto restart, auto replication, and auto-scaling easy and healing for the software.
• Horizontal Scaling- Auto-scaling feature of Kubernetes helps in scaling the resources automatically. The Horizontal scaling uses the HorizontalPodAutoscalar. This feature automatically increases or decreases the number of pods while deploying, replicating the controller, replica set, or stateful set that is based on the observation of CPU utilization.
• DevSecOps Support- DevSecOps is an advanced security approach. This feature simplifies and automates container operation across the cloud. It also provides security throughout the container lifecycle. This enables the teams to deliver secure and high-quality software quickly. Combining DevSecOps and Kubernetes enhances the productivity of the developer.

The Architecture of Kubernetes and Its Working

The containers in Kubernetes integrate the application in a form that is portable and easy to deploy. The Kubernetes architecture follows the client-server architecture. There are two main components of this particular architecture. They are-

1. Master Node (Control Plane)
2. Slave/ Worker Node

Master Node or the Kubernetes Control Plane-

This component of the Kubernetes Architecture helps in managing the states of a cluster. The Master Node is the entry point for all kinds of administrative tasks. There are more than one Master Node in the Kubernetes cluster to check the fault tolerance.

The following are the four different components of the Master Node-

1. API Server- The REST command sent by the users is received by the API server. Once the command is received, the API validates the REST requests, processes the request, and finally executes it. Once the REST command is executed the resulting cluster state is saved as a distributive key-value store in ‘etcd’.

2. Scheduler- The tasks that are to be performed by the Worker Node are scheduled by the Scheduler. The Scheduler is responsible to appoint the pods to the available worker nodes.

3. Controller Manager- Also known as the Controller, the Controller Manager executes the non-terminating controlling loops. In a Master Node, the controller performs a task and manages the state of the cluster.

4. ETCD- The ETCD is an open-source, simple distributed key-value storage. It is used to store the cluster data. It is written in the GO programming language.

Worker/ Slave Node-

The Worker Node is also known as Minions. It is a physical machine that implements the application with the use of pods. It has all the essential services that enable a user to assign the resources to the scheduled containers.

The Worker Node has the following different components-

1. Kubelet- The Kubelet is an agent service. It ensures that the pods and their containers are functioning smoothly. Each of the Kubelet in the worker node has established communication with the Master Node. The Kubelet starts, stops, and maintains the containers that are arranged into pods directly by the Master Node.

2. Kube-Proxy- The Kube-Proxy requests forwarding on each worker node in the cluster. Each node communicates with the Kubernetes through the Kube-Proxy.

3. Pods- One worker node can successfully execute multiple pods which are in itself a combination of one or more containers.

Advantages of Kubernetes

The following are the advantages of using Kubernetes-

• Automated Operations- There are built-in commands in Kubernetes. These commands are enabled to handle the heavy lifting amenities that go into managing the application. These commands enable one to automate day-to-day operations. This ensures that applications are running efficiently and the way the user wants them to function.
• Portability- The Kubernetes containers are portable across a range of environments. All the major public clouds support Kubernetes. This enables the containerized applications on K8s to function in various environments.
• Infrastructure Abstraction- After installing Kubernetes, it automatically handles the compute, networking, and storage of the workload. Developers do not need to worry about the underlying environment and focus on their applications.
• Cost-Efficient- Kubernetes is open-source. The in-built resource optimization and flexibility on workloads enable cost-efficiency.
• Service Health Monitoring- Kubernetes autoruns pods that are stalling in functions. It automatically runs health checks on the services and makes sure the application is running efficiently.

Difference between Kubernetes and Docker

Docker is a platform that is used to containerize software to easily build applications. There is a continuous debate on whether Kubernetes is better or Docker. The following provides the basic difference between Kubernetes and Docker.

Steps to Install Kubernetes in Linux

The following are the easy steps to install Kubernetes in Linux-

• Step 1- First update the supporting systems of Kubernetes using the following two commands-

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https

The second command must be executed after the successful output of the first command.

• Step 2- The second step is to download the dependencies of the docker. The commands required for this step are-

sudo apt install docker.io
sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker
Docker -version

• Step 3- In this step, one needs to provide the curl command to send the data using the URL syntax.
• Step 4- After the curl commands are executed, one needs to install the components of Kubernetes.
• Step 5- In step 5, the user needs to initialize the Kubeadm.
• Step 6- Here, the user needs to run commands to check the successful execution of the kubeadm. The commands are-

mkdir -p $HOME/.kube
sudo cp -i /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf $HOME/.kube/config
sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) $HOME/.kube/config

• Step 7– Here, one has to deploy the paths using the following command-

sudo kubectl apply-f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coreos/flannel/master/Documentation/kube-flannel.yml

• Step 8– Finally, one needs to verify the installation with the following command-

sudo kubectl get pods --all-namespaces

Edureify, in this article, has provided a detailed introduction to Kubernetes.

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Some FAQs on Kubernetes-

1. What is the etymological meaning of Kubernetes?

Etymologically, Kubernetes comes from the Greek language which means a helmsman or pilot.

2. What is Kubernetes?

Kubernetes is an open-source platform designed by Google in 2014. It is extensible and portable that is used to automate the deployment and scaling operations across clusters of nodes of the container-based applications.

3. What do the K8s mean?

Kubernetes, also known as ‘K8s’ is a software that manages, scales, and maintains multiple container workloads in their desired states automatically. The 8 in ‘K8s’ stands for the number of letters between K and S.

4. Is Kubernetes open-source?

Yes, Kubernetes is open-source.

5. From where can I learn more on Kubernetes?

Join the best online coding Bootcamp with Edureify to learn everything about Kubernetes.