{"id":103482,"date":"2021-11-18T08:52:54","date_gmt":"2021-11-18T16:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/?p=103482"},"modified":"2022-07-14T13:55:14","modified_gmt":"2022-07-14T20:55:14","slug":"what-is-kubernetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/what-is-kubernetes\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Kubernetes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Do you remember when \u201cPok\u00e9mon Go\u201d came out in 2016? Suddenly it was everywhere. It was a world-wide obsession, with over 10 million downloads in its first week and 500 million downloads in six months. System load rapidly escalated to 50 times the anticipated demand. How could the game architecture support such out-of-control hypergrowth?<\/p>\n

The answer: At release time, Pok\u00e9mon Go was \u201cThe largest Kubernetes deployment on Google Container Engine.\u201d<\/a> Kubernetes is a container orchestration tool that manages resources for dynamic web-scale applications, like \u201cPok\u00e9mon Go.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this post, we\u2019ll take a look at what Kubernetes does, how it works, and how it could be applicable in your environment.<\/p>\n

What Is Kubernetes?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

You may be familiar with containers<\/a>. They\u2019re conceptually similar to lightweight virtual machines. Instead of simulating computer hardware and running an entire operating system (OS) on that simulated computer, the container runs applications under a parent OS with almost no overhead. Containers allow developers and system administrators to develop, test, and deploy software and applications much faster than VMs, and most applications today are built with them.<\/p>\n

But what happens if one of your containers goes down, or your ecommerce store experiences high demand, or if you release a viral sensation like \u201cPok\u00e9mon Go\u201d? You don\u2019t want your application to crash, and you definitely don\u2019t want your store to go down during the Christmas crush. Unfortunately, containers don\u2019t solve those problems. You could implement intelligence in your application to scale as needed, but that would make your application a lot more complex and expensive to implement. It would be simpler and faster if you could use a drop-in layer of management\u2014a \u201cfleet manager\u201d of sorts\u2014to coordinate your swarm of containers. That\u2019s Kubernetes.<\/p>\n

Kubernetes Architecture: How Does Kubernetes Work?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Kubernetes implements a fairly straightforward hierarchy of components and concepts:<\/p>\n