With Kubernetes becoming more popular it’s time to find out why you should use it with Docker to manage your application development.

On one hand, Docker is a container service, a means to deploy a server in an isolated environment much like a virtual machine, only much easier. Kubernetes, on the other hand, is a platform for deploying, orchestrating, and monitoring Dockerized applications.

With Kubernetes, Docker allows you to create a lightweight and efficient development and testing environment for apps. Hence the reason why usage of Kubernetes is on the rise and it is winning the containment management system race. Here are a few reasons why you should consider using it with Docker.

Easier Deployments with Kubernetes

Kubernetes has Deployment Controllers which provide updates to all its Pods and ReplicaSets. With it, you can change a deployment object into the desired state. This system has replaced the former rolling update procedure: Now you can just declare what desired state you wish and the Kubernetes cluster will take care of the rest. Finally, the Deployments feature allows you to roll back any deployments to an earlier version with no fuss.

Support for Multiple Availability Zones

Kubernetes now fully supports multiple availability zones. This means that you can deploy your cluster outside of a single AZ, and the scheduler will still know where to send requests to different nodes. This helps with disaster mitigation, as you won’t lose all of your clusters in the event the entire AZ goes down. Note that your Kubernetes Master controller must still remain in one AZ.

DaemonSets Feature

Containers run on nodes, which are part of a Kubernetes cluster. In the event you need to run tasks on a node, say to collect usage reports and logs to send to a logging system, you need to run a single container per node.

To simplify this task, Kubernetes employs DaemonSets, which ensures that a certain number of nodes run a copy of a pod. DaemonSets tasks include cluster storage, logs collection, or node monitoring.

You may create and remove DaemonSets at any time using the API, without having to modify nodes.

Larger Cluster Sizes

Kubernetes continues to grow its capabilities. With the 1.6 version release, it has raised its node count to up to 5,000 nodes and 150,00 pod clusters. Kubernetes also continues to optimize its performance even as it scales up its cluster sizes, providing better startup time than previous versions.

Autoscaling

Kubernetes allows you to save a significant amount of time, money, and resources by automatically scaling its cluster sizes and the number of pod replicas, depending on the required workload and traffic.

ConfigMaps and Secrets

Another reason why you should use Kubernetes is that it allows you to store sensitive data in two ways. If you want to keep it private, you can store it in a secret. If you want to store non-sensitive configuration in a more accessible and convenient way, you can do so with ConfigMaps.

For greater convenience, you have the options to turn both secrets and ConfigMaps into environmental valuables when you define your containers. This way, you don’t have to mount a volume just to access configuration items.

Job Monitoring

Kubernetes allows you to track Pods to determine if they completed successfully. A job creates one or more pods and verifies if they terminated as expected. It will then clean up any Pods it has created.

You can find out more about the benefits of Kubernetes, as well as recent upgrades and a brief tutorial on running this amazing tool on AWS. If you would like to learn how to apply Kubernetes to your data center, contact PolarSeven today.