This article provides a brief overview of Kubernetes and its various components.
Kubernetes was developed by Google as a solution for containerized application management in clustered environments. It is very handy when you need to manage related components that are distributed across infrastructures.
In a nutshell, Kubernetes runs and coordinates applications across machine clusters in a predictable, scalable, and highly available manner. It allows you to determine your applications' behavior and interactions with the outside world. Specifically, it allows you to:
With Kubernetes interfaces and platform primitives, your applications are defined and managed for flexible, reliable and powerful utilization.
Kubernetes utilizes a layered architecture that effectively abstracts complexities below the user level. At the basic level, a shared network allows clustered machines to communicate with each other flawlessly. Components, capabilities, and workloads are configured at the cluster level.
Within each Kubernetes cluster, there are specific roles assigned and controlled by one master server or a small group of machines. The master server is both the gateway and manager of other clusters, determining their health and balancing the workload. Master servers are the way through which clients access services through APIs, as well as maintain communication of components.
Apart from the master server, the platform also includes nodes that accept and run workloads using locally available or external resources. Kubernetes further includes containers such as Docker to isolate workload instances. Once nodes receive instructions from the master server, they create or destroy containers. All applications run within cluster containers after the master server submits either JSON or YAML plans after client input. Kubernetes determines how applications are processed entirely.
It has been highlighted that the master server acts as the primary cluster control. It includes components that to accept requests, schedule workloads, authenticate users, control networking, manage health and scaling. The master could be a single machine or a distributed cluster. Please click the the link in the fist line to get to know the main components.
In this article, we will be setting up a self-built kubernetes on Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service instances using Linux flavors (Centos7 and Ubuntu 16.
Alibaba Cloud Container Service for Kubernetes is a fully-managed service compatible with Kubernetes to help users focus on their applications rather than managing container infrastructure. There are two ways to deploy Kubernetes on Alibaba Cloud, one through Container Service (built-in) and the other through an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance (self-built). If you are not sure which installation method suits your needs better, then refer to the documentation Alibaba Cloud Kubernetes vs. self-built Kubernetes.
For the most part, choosing Alibaba Cloud Container Service is the preferred choice as it saves time and reduces the complexity to maintain Kubernetes clusters. However, there may be cases where a manual installation is better suited to your needs. In this article, we will be setting up a self-built kubernetes on Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service instances using Linux flavors (Centos7 and Ubuntu 16.04).
In this article, we will deploy containerized Kubernetes applications and learn how to expose services as well as scaling them through replication by a controller.
We have seen, in our beginner's guide that Kubernetes is an open source platform used in containerized applications management. We have looked at the basics Kubernetes, terms, and what components do. In how to Install and Deploy Kubernetes on Ubuntu 16.04, the author has demonstrated the procedure of deploying Kubernetes on Alibaba Cloud. With our platform running successfully on the cloud platform, we are now going to explore more about primitives, deploying containerized applications. We shall also see how to expose services as well as scaling them through replication by a controller.
You will need to get yourself acquainted with the concepts and deployment of Kubernetes for you to follow through with this article. There are specific terms that may need you to refer back to the articles for this tutorial.
Users leverage Kubernetes APIs for the creation, scaling and termination of applications on the platform. Kubernetes manages various types of objects, each targeted by a different operation. Objects constitute the basic building blocks of Kubernetes, availed as primitives for managing containerized applications. In summary, below are the most important Kubernetes API objects:
Kubernetes treats nodes as objects within the cluster. Therefore, you can manage them as you would any other Kubernetes object. On top of that Namespaces on Kubernetes provide a means for the logical separation of applications. A common application of this feature is the separation of development, testing, staging and production clusters. With Namespaces, the various environments can be managed using APIs that link to them independently.
Docker containers running on Kubernetes are not deployed directly because Kubernetes does not understand the format. Kubernetes primitives are needed to package Docker into a different version that allows Kubernetes application management.
Pods can run multiple containers. For instance, we can have both Nginx and Redis containers to run a web server and cache operations in a singular pod. In the configuration, all containers in a pod are as a result of a pre-configured ped definition, and as such, they form a logical unit. Notably, inter-process communication (IPC) is the method of communication between pods.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to create a cluster on which you can install Alibaba Cloud's Container Service for Kubernetes.
Before you can run Kubernetes containerized application environments on Alibaba Cloud's Container Service for Kubernetes you need to create a Kubernetes cluster.
Orchestrating containerized applications with virtual management tools, such as Kubernetes and Docker Swarm, allows developers to manage and monitor production and development environments made up of containerized applications built directly into the Alibaba Cloud Container Service.
Alibaba Cloud's Container Service is a scalable and reliable high-performance container management service that allows you to orchestrate and manage containerized application lifecycles with either Kubernetes or Docker Swarm.
Alibaba Cloud's Container Service offers multiple application release methods, including continuous integration, and also supports a microservices architecture. Container Service for Kubernetes provides enterprise level performance and flexibility for the management of Kubernetes containerized applications at every stage of the development lifecycle.
Alibaba Cloud's Container Service for Kubernetes simplifies cluster creation, management, and allows easy upscale. It also auto-integrates with Alibaba Cloud's virtualization, storage, network, and security services which improve and simplify the overall running environment for Kubernetes containerized applications.
Alibaba Cloud's Container Service is one of the first cloud container services to have passed the Certified Kubernetes Conformance Program.
Kubernetes is a large scale, open source, automated orchestration platform for multi-container applications. It eliminates the manual work involved in deploying and scaling containerized applications. Kubernetes orchestrates, manages, and monitors extensive, enterprise-grade clusters of nodes that together run containerized application stacks.
Kubernetes organizes containers into logical units for easy administration. It deals with the computing, networking, and storage infrastructure required by user workloads and is highly flexible and scalable. Kubernetes functions as both Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and is flexible, simple to use, and portable.
Kubernetes mainly orchestrates applications built up of Docker containers, but it can also manage any container system that conforms to the Open Container Initiative (OCI) standards for container image formats and runtimes.
In this tutorial, we are going to connect and deploy Kubernetes resources through the Alibaba Cloud console.
Install a Kubernetes Cluster on Alibaba Cloud.
To manage the Kubernetes cluster, you need to connect to your cluster in using Cloud Shell CLI 2.0. It will help you execute "kubectl" command from local machine to "Kubernetes Services" which is hosted on Alibaba Cloud.
Step 1: To install "kubectl" on local machine, go to Alibaba Cloud Console Portal Link. select you "cluster" and click on "Manage" of your Kubernetes cluster.
Step 2: Scroll down and navigate to "Cluster Resource" Section and copy the key (kube config code).
Note:
We will look at how Alibaba Cloud supports serverless container application scenarios with Container Service for Kubernetes and Elastic Container Instance.
With the popularization of containers and the serverless concept, the Alibaba Cloud Container Service team and the Elastic Compute Service team worked collaboratively and released multiple Serverless container products and solutions, including Serverless Kubernetes, Elastic Container Instance (ECI), and the virtual-nodes add-on feature. These products support a variety of serverless container application scenarios.
Serverless Kubernetes, released by the Alibaba Cloud Container Service team, has been in the open beta test for a while now. Users don't need to manage servers and can normally perform various Kubernetes API operations, including creating pods, services, ingresses, and jobs. The biggest advantage of Serverless is that it not only avoids the server maintenance burden but also provides applications with powerful elastic scaling. Elasticity is no longer limited to the node scale of clusters. In addition, application billing is based on the resource usage.
We released the virtual-nodes feature to further optimize the Container Service user experience, support more application scenarios and provide extremely powerful elastic scaling for users' Kubernetes clusters.
This course aims to help IT companies who want to container their business applications, and cloud computing engineers or enthusiasts who want to learn container technology and Kubernetes. By learning this course, you can fully understand what Kubernetes is, why we need Kubernetes, the basic architecture of Kubernetes, some core concepts and terms of Kubernetes, and how to build a Kubernetes cluster on the Alibaba cloud platform, so as to provide reference for the evaluation, design and implementation of application containerization.
Easy to use
Container Service Kubernetes clusters allow you to expand or contract the capacity vertically with one click to respond to the peak of the data analysis business quickly.
This topic compares the following types of Kubernetes clusters: Dedicated Kubernetes clusters, Managed Kubernetes clusters, and Serverless Kubernetes clusters.
Container Service for Kubernetes provides high-performance and scalable capabilities for native cloud application management, and enables you to manage the entire lifecycle of enterprise-level containerized applications.
This course aims to help IT companies who want to container their business applications, and cloud computing engineers or enthusiasts who want to learn container technology and Kubernetes. By learning this course, you can fully understand what Kubernetes is, why we need Kubernetes, the basic architecture of Kubernetes, some core concepts and terms of Kubernetes, and how to build a Kubernetes cluster on the Alibaba cloud platform, so as to provide reference for the evaluation, design and implementation of application containerization.
This course is associated with Provisioning a Multi-zone ACK Kubernetes Cluster Using Terraform. You must purchase the certification package before you are able to complete all lessons for a certificate.
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