On July 21, 2015, Google Cloud announced a new application management technology named Kubernetes. It is not like a conventional inclusive Platform as a Service (PaaS) system. Since it tends to operate more at container level than at the hardware level, Kubernetes has made it much more comfortable for enterprises to develop container-based applications, offering more applicable features that are common to PaaS systems. These may include load balancing, deployment, logging, scaling, and monitoring.
However, Kubernetes is not monolithic and acts as optional default solutions that are pluggable. Kubernetes is successful in providing building blocks for developer platforms while preserving flexibility and user choice where essential. Just like every other technology, Kubernetes has become the most positively impacting technology for the industry. It is contributing well to how software is deployed for scaling, flexibility, processing, and engagement for big open-source projects.
In this article, we’ll look at the current and future state of Kubernetes in the enterprise. If you’re new to Kubernetes, check out Cloud Academy’s Introduction to Kubernetes Learning Path. This learning path will introduce you to the basics of Kubernetes and will provide hands-on experience.
If you already mastered the basics of Kubernetes and you’re ready to take your knowledge to the next level, getting certified is the next big step. Don’t miss Cloud Academy’s Tips for Passing the CKAD and CKA Kubernetes Certifications webinar on January 30 at 10 a.m. PT.
You’ll get insight into:
· Common aspects of the two exams
· Choosing which exam to take
· Studying tips for passing the exams
Rise of Kubernetes (K8s)
The rise of application containers has proven to be the most critical contributing precursor to Kubernetes. Docker was the first tool that has containers usable by a wide range of businesses. They came into the market as an open-source project in 2013. Developers are enabling them to achieve better management, easier language runtime, application deployment, flexibility, and scalability.
Containers have made stateless applications more flexible for scalability and provide an unalterable experience of deployment artifact. They have drastically reduced the number of variables that were previously confronted between production systems and test systems. Meanwhile, when containers have presented with substantial stand-alone value for developers and businesses, the next thing is to tackle management and delivery services, architectures, applications and has spanned multiple containers with hosts.
Google has already been succeeded in encountering some issues in its own IT infrastructure. Since it has run the world’s most top rated search engine with millions of users and products leading to innovation and adoption of containers. Google’s internal platform, Borg, inspired Kubernetes. It was used for managing and scheduling billions of containers to implement services.
Since its launch, Kubernetes has proven to be more than just Borg for everyone. It has distilled with most reliable API patterns and architectures of prior software. It has coupled them with current authorization policies, load balancing, and other features that are required to manage and run applications at massive scale. In turn, this provides developers with the groundwork for cluster abstractions to enable true portability across clouds.
With the explosion of innovation around Kubernetes, businesses have started to analyze obstacles for complete adoption. Many giants in the industry have increased investing resources and assuring mission-critical workloads. Fortunately, Kubernetes got a better response for the wave of adoption that swept to the forefront of crowded container management space.
Role of Kubernetes in Enterprises
Despite the core business, every company is embracing digitalization. Their ability to adapt to rapid growth and competitiveness is mostly appreciated. Cloud-native technologies are aroused to meet the needs in providing observability and automation that are necessary to manage applications. Also, they are planned to scale up with high velocity. Businesses were previously restricted for quarterly deployments for critical applications.
The Kubernetes declarative API-driven infrastructure enables teams to work independently. Moreover, it helps operators to concentrate their business goals. These inevitable shifts in the culture of working have been proven to contribute towards higher productivity and autonomy, along with decreasing the labor of development teams.
Source: lh4.googleusercontent.com
Kubernetes enables teams to deploy new software and develop a rapid virtuous cycle for technical practitioners toward the success of companies like Premium Jackets. Additionally, they have started to foster contributions back to the software they used. It will not only improve the performance but also builds a critical skill to create challenging opportunities that leverage businesses to attract and retain fresh talent.
Thus, Kubernetes curates a collaborative working culture to encourage the sharing of learning, the contribution of resources, and the development of developers within the industry. This fosters a favorable environment to benefit end-users, businesses, contributors, and developers equally.
Kubernetes Current State
Kubernetes has made a lot of effort to help users manage the end state of what a developer needs the system to do while automatically keeping replicas running and restoring process. Here, a single configuration is circulating across all available clusters. Thus, you have a single standardized platform to be used steadily across the industry. The entire above phenomenon helps to normalize and standardize usage so that you can keep all dependency applications in a single container to tell Kubernetes to run it efficiently.
For most of the clients, Kubernetes has become a standard way to orchestrate and manage containers to take the concept popularized. Kubernetes is successful in orchestrating specific deployment on specific sites across multiple sites with the application life cycles.
Since Docker with Swarm and Mesos with Meriton, K8s has been succeeded in delivering lots of stability to be utilized in the production for a considerable amount of clients. Putting clients ahead of processes has led to the success of Kubernetes. By this, developers have encouraged native foundation derived growth of the industry.
Moreover, Kubernetes has managed to change the way of dealing in complicated environments while maintaining the ability to integrate sensible rules and availability of constructs. There is a vast difference comparing advanced products from conventional ones. Containers cannot be managed manually. Kubernetes has the capability of scaling up processes.
Kubernetes is highly transformative. It is very inspirational how it has changed the way industry looked at the infrastructure of orchestration. More, two of the most liked upgradations are responsiveness and self-healing with a great deal of resilience. It has shifted the focus of industry from achieving individual state to a better state of abstraction. Hence, there is a formulated framework of solutions to tackle issues.
Extensibility is another achievement of Kubernetes in managing and orchestrating containers. It has done a dramatically great job around architecturally composites and primitives. It’s all about resourcing well with a consistent volume. Users can combine multiple primitives into a single application and customized behaviors with ease and the ability to extend and customize.
Traditionally, container management and orchestration systems tended to support and focus on providing use cases. Kubernetes is the first-ever system that is intended to help to orchestrate from microenvironments to large ones. All of them have the ability to scale up without any significant impact on implementation. Furthermore, Kubernetes has succeeded in making enterprise multi-cloud strategies into reality by providing a unified set of concepts and APIs.
Thanks to Kubernetes, it has been much more comfortable for enterprises to develop container-based applications. The reason is, Kubernetes features cloud provider support with a ubiquitous platform so that businesses can proceed in adopting innovative technology with reliability. By realizing the good implementations and a strong presence of applications, businesses have widely started embracing technology. Also, Kubernetes has invited attackers to test the security of software as unlimited enterprise targets are presented with an increase in developer’s concerns on enhancing containers security.
Kubernetes provides users with an entire consistency of elaborating containers with their resources to run them, including configuration, networks, storage, databases, secrets, and all custom-defined specifications. The uniformity has made it easier for developers to configure and track stacks.
To get Kubernetes infused into APIs and tooling, developers just need to have reliable versioning, rollback, and peer reviews to put it into source control. These two elements combine well as they are persuasive throughout the architecture and provide visibility and revolutionary control into the current state of the cluster. They will lead to improving operations, compliance, and security.
Application containerization is a comparative recent industry trend. Fortunately, its popularity is driven by Docker. Kubernetes is picked up significantly well because it has much more to offer, including an operator’s framework to automate CI/CD and an ecosystem of tools. Moreover, it provides a smooth integration of existing cloud service via brokers and catalogs and a robust emphasis of declarative pattern over imperatives to allow accessible application state management.
Undoubtedly, Kubernetes has proven itself to attract and grab large businesses who have realized the worth of Kubernetes in tackling operational challenges and bulk challenges to let them follow their core businesses.
Kubernetes Future State
With the progress of applications and acceptability of Kubernetes, it has been the main flux now. It is not just about modifying a specific way of deploying and running the software but to more architectural modernization. Previously, enterprises were cautious about orchestration due to the lack of essential tools. Fortunately, the tools are accessible to them. Organizations can now leverage the innovative and easy to use self-service across the world.
From the last five years of its launch, Kubernetes seems like an eternity. They say a lot concerning innovation in the community with the rapid adoption of technology. Alternatively, this is just the start with the new ways to comply with edge computing, machine learning, and things of shipping into the cloud-native ecosystem. They have been done smoothly via Kube-flow as they are the surest way to succeed.
Currently, Kubernetes has been the most successful essential for an industry like electrical grids and urban plumbing. Indeed the standards for operating them are dramatic; however, they are taken for granted as well. As per the recently published keynote by Googler and KubeCon co-chair Janet Kuo said, “Kubernetes is going to become boring, and that’s a good thing, at least for the majority of people who don’t have to care about container management.” He further added that “At Google Cloud, we’re still excited about the project, and we go to work on it every day. Yet it’s all of the solutions and extensions that expand from Kubernetes that will dramatically change the world as we know it.”
Thus, everyone is celebrating the growing success of Kubernetes by acknowledging the avid support Kubernetes is offering to make the community better in utilizing the corrective time and money measures. It just needs to foster the initiative and innovation with the existing cloud-native ecosystem to reward the efforts of every contributor helping to nurture and maintain the infrastructure of technology. Moreover, to thank every single person who has been a part of the global success of Kubernetes as it has changed the world for better.
Final Verdict
Lastly, Kubernetes has not only helped in the vertical and horizontal scaling of containers but have turned the tables for innovative engineering expectations. It has been succeeded in deployment for an initial estimate of servers. Also, it has gained so much popularity in a short span of time. Hence, most of the industry engineers will respond with inspiring stories to get their businesses right on tracks.
