Kubernetes

From cluster down to load balancer — click a layer to see what it's for.

What it does: A set of nodes managed together, running the control plane and workloads.
Why it's used: Gives you a single control surface to schedule and manage containers across machines.

Related concepts

Injects non-sensitive configuration into pods as env vars or files.

Stores sensitive values like credentials, base64-encoded (not encrypted by default).

A piece of storage provisioned in the cluster, independent of any pod.

A request for storage by a pod, bound to a matching PV.

Manages pods that need stable identities and storage, like databases.

Ensures a copy of a pod runs on every (or selected) node — used for agents like log shippers.

Runs a pod to completion for a one-off task.

Runs Jobs on a schedule, like a cluster-native cron.

Liveness/readiness/startup checks that tell Kubernetes if a container is healthy.

Role-based access control for who can do what inside the cluster.

Limits aggregate resource consumption within a namespace.

A package manager for templating and versioning Kubernetes manifests.

AWS's managed Kubernetes control plane.

Runs local Kubernetes clusters using Docker containers as nodes, for development.

A CNI plugin providing pod networking and network policy enforcement.