Kubernetes is a container orchestration tool built by Google.

It allows running a wide variety of workloads:

1. StatefulSets, PersistentVolumes - for Stateful workloads
2. Deployments, DaemonSets, Jobs - for Stateless workloads
3. Deployments, StatefulSets & DaemonSets - for long-lived workloads
4. Jobs - for short-lived workloads
5. CronJobs - for periodic workloads

Kubernetes also provides resources for managing the network:

1. Services - for exposing workloads using a host and a port
2. Ingress Controller & Ingresses - for abstracting away services and manage complex rules
3. API Gateway & Routes - similar to ingresses but more api-oriented

And finally, it provides means of configuring workloads:

1. ConfigMaps - for workload configuration
2. Secrets - for sensitive configuration

There are many advantages to using Orchestration tools:

• Improve the utilization of CPU, memory, and storage usage by running many processes on a single machine
• Manage the entire lifecycle of the orchestrated workloads: pre & post initialization & termination
• Control the scale of workloads and the scale of their underlying infrastructure separately
• Centralized management of workloads and infrastructure

As the industry standard for container orchestration, Kubernetes has many advantages:

• Container Orchestration — Kubernetes automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications, simplifying complex workflows.
• High Availability — Kubernetes ensures that applications are always up and running by distributing container replicas across different nodes.
• Scalability — It supports both manual scaling and automatic scaling based on CPU or memory usage, catering to changing application demands.
• Load Balancing — Kubernetes can distribute network traffic to maintain stability and enhance application responsiveness.
• Self-Healing — It can detect failed containers or nodes and replace them, ensuring uninterrupted service.
• Rolling Updates & Rollbacks — Kubernetes facilitates smooth application updates and can revert to a previous stable version if needed.
• Service Discovery — Using DNS or environment variables, Kubernetes allows containers to discover and communicate with each other.
• Storage Orchestration — Kubernetes connects storage systems like local storages, cloud providers, and more, allowing you to automatically mount the storage of your choice.
• Config and Secret Management — Kubernetes can manage sensitive information like passwords, OAuth tokens, and SSH keys without re-building container images.
• Ecosystem and Community — Kubernetes is supported by a vibrant community that provides continuous updates, plugins, and integrations, ensuring the platform remains cutting-edge.

Some of Kubernetes' leading competitors are Nomad, AWS ECS, and GCP Cloud Run.

They all have a rich set of abilities, but all lack the community that exists around Kubernetes.

AWS ECS and GCP Cloud Run are more well suited for running workloads on AWS and GCP accordingly, due to a wide variety of integrations with other products the Cloud providers offer, but due to the same reason they vendor-lock the system to the selected cloud.

Our experience with Kubernetes have helped us build up knowledge and tools to help our clients.

Some of the things we did:

• Provisioned Kubernetes clusters on AWS, GCP, Azure and on-premise setups
• Implemented Kubernetes autoscaling solutions for both the nodes and for the workloads deployed on them
• Deployed and managed the lifecycle of stateless and stateful workloads using Helm
• Monitored Kubernetes clusters using Prometheus and Grafana
• Deployed and provisioned resources on Kubernetes using Pulumi and Terraform
• Implemented service mesh in multi-cluster setups
• Built entire serverless architectures on top of Kubernetes using Knative

The experience we have building a wide variety systems on top of Kubernetes helped us gain the knowledge required to help companies build high-end Kubernetes architectures.

• Provision Kubernetes clusters using Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Terraform and Pulumi
• Implement and utilize tools like Helm and ArgoCD to manage deployments and adopt the GitOps approach
• Review your current Kubernetes cluster
• Build a roadmap for improving your existing Kubernetes setup
• Deploy, monitor, and manage the life-cycle of workloads on Kubernetes
• Adopt best practices and industry-standard tools to manage Kubernetes