Kubernetes

What is Kubernetes?

An open-source container orchestration platform originally developed by Google, now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Automates deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications across clusters of machines. Provides service discovery, load balancing, storage orchestration, automated rollouts and rollbacks, and self-healing capabilities. The de facto standard for container orchestration, used by companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Enables true cloud-native application development.

When to use it

• Essential for managing containerized applications at scale in production environments.
• Perfect for microservices architectures, multi-cloud deployments, and applications requiring high availability.
• Ideal when you need automatic scaling, rolling updates, service discovery, or managing complex distributed systems.
• Commonly used with Docker, in cloud platforms (GKE, EKS, AKS), and for enterprise container management.

When NOT to use it

• Small applications or single-container deployments - Docker Compose is sufficient
• When you have limited DevOps expertise - steep learning curve
• Single-server deployments - overkill for simple setups
• When you don't need auto-scaling or orchestration - adds unnecessary complexity

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