What is Kubernetes?

Automation is becoming an increasingly crucial part of business processes. Automating more processes increases efficiency and productivity, allowing people at the company to focus on more important tasks. Kubernetes empowers companies to automate day-to-day operations for container architecture, so they can ensure that their time is being spent in the most efficient way possible. Automated operations are also more accurate because there is no opportunity for human error. Automated operations are a powerful tool.

Developers’ time is valuable. Companies benefit when developers can focus on the most important tasks while tools take care of the lower priorities. Infrastructure abstraction with Kubernetes allows Kubernetes to manage computing, networking, and storage. Kubernetes manages these tasks and the architecture which frees developers to focus on the applications themselves.

Kubernetes runs health checks for developers to ensure that each container is working properly. The system can also restart any containers that stall or fail. Managing the health of the containers is important, but Kubernetes also ensures that only fully functional and running services are available to users. If something is not working, users will not see it until Kubernetes resets it.

Kubernetes is primarily designed to create, manage, and deploy applications. How does Kubernetes work to do that? Developers set up Kubernetes, define a cluster, and create nodes. Once those are in place, Kubernetes will create and remove pods as necessary to keep applications running properly for users. To access and manage Kubernetes, developers can use Minikube to access on a local machine, Ingress to access externally, or the dashboard to access other tools.

What does Kubernetes empower companies to do? These are some of the key goals that can be accomplished with Kubernetes:

• Orchestrate containers across multiple hosts
• Scale applications
• Check the health of applications
• Control and automate deployment
• Manage and add storage to run processes
• Maximize hardware space to run enterprise applications
• Deploy applications anywhere
• Increase development velocity

There are other projects often discussed with Kubernetes. Each of these is a distinct project that can perform different tasks for developers. These other projects are often confused with Kubernetes or positioned as the opposite choice. But these projects are compatible with Kubernetes.

Docker came before Kubernetes and even contributed to the creation of Kubernetes. Docker is a tool that allows developers to separate everything needed to run an application into “boxes” that can be stored and opened when needed. Docker is a way to create containers. But once applications are stored in “boxes,” there needs to be a way to manage those containers and to ensure that the right ones are stored and opened.

That is why Kubernetes was created. Kubernetes was designed to be a tool to organize and manage container applications, like those that Docker creates. Kubernetes was designed to lead containers to the right spots, which is why the system is named for the Greek word for “captain.”

Kubernetes and Docker are not competitors. Kubernetes can be used with or without Docker because they both provide distinct roles for managing container-based applications. But they can also be used together for powerful impact. Kubernetes can use Docker to deploy and manage container-based applications.

Mesos is another project often discussed with Kubernetes. Mesos is an Apache project that was created as a response to Google Borg. Mesos also provides container orchestration services, but it’s also designed to be a program that can run non-containerized components, in addition to the containerized ones. Because of its broad scope, many programs can run within Mesos, including Kubernetes

The adoption of Kubernetes is generally a part of a larger program to either transform a company’s application environment to the cloud or to become more “cloud-native” by delivering new applications and services. ServiceNow has multiple ties to help with this transformation that can help your company find the right Kubernetes approach, such as change management, observability, and cloud management.

The adoption of Kubernetes goes hand-in-hand with modern development practices, such as DevOps. Large and regulated organizations must still focus on governance as part of the release process for updates in the cloud. But there are added complications: a wide range of disparate components and the speed and transient nature of code delivery in a container-based architecture.

We connect the work and services managed in ServiceNow with the development process to allow for automated change management, end-to-end KPIs and flow metric insights, and auditing. We also have a specific component of ITSM Pro called DevOps Config that adds controls and insights specifically around the wide range of configuration activities that occur as part of delivering a service in the cloud that can benefit your company with the implementation of Kubernetes.

Kubernetes works to improve the function of an application and the way a company manages container-based applications. But there are challenges that organizations face to be able to have the observability necessary to operate successfully. ServiceNow Cloud Observability offers the observability and insights into processes and configurations that can ease the implementation of Kubernetes for your organization.

As your organization uses the cloud more, it’s important to have cloud management in place. IT Operations Management from ServiceNow can help make this possible while also implementing Kubernetes.

Learn more about ITOM and how it can help your company implement and utilize Kubernetes to manage your applications.