As more developers and organizations embrace cloud computing and modernize their applications, the cloud-native development approach is becoming the standard across the industry. Because this approach relies on containerization, microservices, and automation, developers are embracing options like Kubernetes to ease their work and develop new workflows. Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration platform that has changed how developers develop, deploy, and manage their applications.
But, what role does it play in cloud-native development?
It Allows for Easier Management of Microservices
In the cloud-native development workflow, developers design their applications as a collection of microservices that run on separate containers. Kubernetes acts as the underlying operating system for these containerized applications and workloads, helping with their deployment, scaling, and management across a cluster of nodes.
Developers should understand that these clusters require proper configuration and management to perform as expected. The good news is that they can let a managed services provider help them deploy and manage their Kubernetes cluster so they can concentrate on developing the best applications.
Kubernetes Makes Scaling Up and Down Easy
Resource management is crucial when running a server and other services. When developers do not manage their server resources properly, they risk their applications not running as expected, which could impact their users negatively. There are also the additional considerations of how much power their servers and cluster need, which ties into making IT and development greener.
Kubernetes makes resource management easier by providing the elasticity cloud-native applications need. It facilitates the automated scaling up and down of deployed applications depending on demand. For example, you can configure your cluster to spin up new containers to handle a traffic spike or shut down unused containers and clusters gracefully.
Doing this frees up crucial resources that the remaining containers can leverage. The additional RAM and CPU performance freed up through the scaling down of containers, services, and workloads could make a significant difference to how the rest of the cluster performs.
It Allows High Availability
Cloud-native applications must always be online to ensure they are always available to the users who need and use them. For this reason, redundancy is one of the most crucial aspects of deploying and managing such applications. Redundancy means there will always be resources available for the applications to use even when some services go down.
Kubernetes plays a crucial role in providing the redundancy and high availability that cloud-native applications need. It can automatically reschedule failed containers to run on healthy nodes. Doing this minimizes downtime and enhances failure tolerance.
Kubernetes is Highly Modular
One of the reasons for Kubernetes’ popularity is its modularity. This feature means you can extend it with custom controllers and resources. Doing this allows you to build highly customized cloud-native applications highly tailored to specific business needs.
Kubernetes Runs Everywhere
Another crucial benefit of Kubernetes is that it is platform-agnostic. You do not have to use it with a specific cloud hosting provider, with many of them now allowing you to run a Kubernetes instance or cluster on their servers. You can also run it on your computer, an on-premises server, public clouds, and hybrid environments. You only need to understand how to set it up on your desired hardware.
The main benefit of this feature is that developers can create an instance on their development computers to run and test their applications. Once they do, they can create images and deploy them on one of the numerous cloud hosting providers that support Kubernetes.
This level of portability means developers can have peace of mind in knowing that their applications will run similarly on the cloud and their development machines. This avoids the issue of an application running on a development machine properly and having issues running on a server. It might be a running joke in the developer community, but every developer has heard the phrase, “It runs well on my machine” or a similar one.
Another benefit of Kubernetes being platform-agnostic is that it helps developers avoid vendor lock-in. Vendor lock-in happens when developers cannot turn over their services or applications to another provider or service because only their current one supports whatever they are building. With Kubernetes, developers can easily pack up containers, images, and applications and move them to another provider.
All the above means developers can create and deploy anywhere without worrying about compatibility or choosing a vendor just because they are currently the only ones supporting the services and features they need.
Kubernetes Supports CI/CD Pipelines
Kubernetes has become so popular in the development community partly because of how well it integrates and supports CI/CD pipelines. Cloud-native app developers want the ability to iterate their applications, deploy new features, get rid of old ones, and even be able to roll back application versions.
Kubernetes fully supports agile practices like continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. This allows developers to use it to accelerate their development and easily embrace rapid iteration practices.
Developers say that the support for CI/CD pipelines provided by Kubernetes allows them to push updates multiple times a day, week, or month without worrying about anything breaking. If it does, Kubernetes’ auto-healing features can help everything return to a running state.
The additional scaling capabilities of Kubernetes also mean developers do not have to worry about pushing huge updates because their clusters will handle the integration seamlessly.
Kubernetes Provides an Ecosystem for Innovation
Kubernetes is an open-source project, so it attracts developers from all backgrounds. This is why it has one of the most vibrant open-source communities in the development world. This community ensures a rich ecosystem of tools and resources that developers, including those creating cloud-native applications, can use to fulfill various development needs.
Available tools range from security, monitoring, analytics, and many others that developers can leverage during the development and management of their clusters and applications.
Cloud-native development is becoming mainstream. And Kubernetes has become the go-to solution for developers who have embraced it. It is now the standard for modern software and web development, allowing developers to leverage its features to create better and more robust workflows.