When a microservice application is deployed in production, it usually has many running containers that need to be allocated the right amount of resources in response to user demands. Also, there is a need to ensure that the containers are online, running and are communicating with one another. The need to efficiently manage and coordinate clusters of containerized applications gave rise to Kubernetes.

Kubernetes is a software system that addresses the concerns of deploying, scaling and monitoring containers. Hence, it is called a container orchestrator. Examples of other container orchestrators in the wild are Docker Swarm, Mesos Marathon and Hashicorp Nomad.

Kubernetes was built and released by Google as an open-source software, which is now managed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). Google Cloud Platform offers a managed Kubernetes services called Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS) also provides a managed Kubernetes service.

Features of Kubernetes

  • Horizontal auto-scaling: dynamically scales containers based on resource demands.
  • Self-healing: re-provisions failed nodes in response to health checks.
  • Load balancing: efficiently distributes requests between containers in a pod.
  • Rollbacks and updates: easily update or revert to a previous container deployment without causing application downtime.
  • DNS service discovery: Uses Domain Name System (DNS) to manage container groups as a Kubernetes service.

Components of Kubernetes

The main components of the Kubernetes engine are the:

  • Master node(s): manages the Kubernetes cluster. They may be more than one master node in High Availability mode for fault-tolerance purposes. In this case, only one is the master, and the others follow.
  • Worker node(s): machine(s) that runs containerized applications that are scheduled as pod(s).

The illustration below provides an overview of the Kubernetes architecture. Later, we’ll briefly go through the individual sub-components.

Kubernetes components.
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Master Node(s)

  • etcd (distributed key-store): manages the Kubernetes cluster state. This distributed key-store can be a part of the Master node or external to it. Nevertheless, all master nodes connect to it.
  • api server: manages all administrative tasks. The api server receives commands from the user (kubectl cli,REST or GUI), these commands are executed and the new cluster state is stored in the distributed key-store.
  • scheduler: schedules work to worker nodes by allocating pods. It is responsible for resource allocation.
  • controller: ensure that the desired state of the Kubernetes cluster is maintained. The desired state is what is contained in a JSON or YAML deployment file.

Worker Node(s)

  • kubelet: the kubelet agent runs on each worker node. It connects the worker node to the api server on the master node and received instructions from it. Ensures the pods on the node are healthy.
  • kube-proxy: it is the Kubernetes network proxy that runs on each worker node. It listens to the api server and forward requests to the appropriate pod. Important for load-balancing.
  • pod(s): consists of one or more containers that share network and storage resources as well as container runtime instructions. Pods are the smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes.

Writing a Kubernetes Deployment File

The Kubernetes deployment file defines the desired state for the various Kubernetes objects. Examples of Kubernetes objects are:

  • Pods: a collection of one or more containers.
  • ReplicaSets: part of the controller in the master node. Specifies the number of replicas of a pod that should be running at any given time. It ensures that the specified number of pods is maintained in the cluster.
  • Deployments: automatically creates ReplicaSets. It is also part of the controller in the master node. Ensures that the clusters current state matches the desired state.
  • Namespaces: partition the cluster into sub-clusters to organize users into groups.
  • Service: a logical group of Pods with a policy to access them.
    • ServiceTypes: specifies the type of Service e.g. ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer, ExternalName. As an example, LoadBalancer exposes the service externally using a cloud provider’s load balancer.

Other important tags in writing a Kubernetes Deployment File.

  • spec: describes the desired state of the cluster.
  • metadata: contains information of the object.
  • labels: used to specify attributes of objects as key-value pairs.
  • selector: used to select a subset of objects based on their label values.

The deployment file is specified as a yaml file.

The example in the next sections deploys the nginx server image that was pushed to Dockerhub in the previous section to a Kubernetes cluster. The image is accessible at https://hub.docker.com/r/ekababisong/ebisong-nginx-server.

Example of a Service Object

This code snippet of a Service object is saved in kubernetes-intro/deployment.yaml.

kind: Service
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: nginx-server-service
spec:
  # service applies to the application with name `nginx-server`
  selector:
    app: nginx-server
  ports:
    - protocol: "TCP"
      # port inside cluster
      port: 8080
      # forward to port inside the pod
      targetPort: 80
      # accessible outside cluster
      nodePort: 30001
  # load balance between 5 instances of the container application
  type: LoadBalancer

Example of a Deployment Object

This code snippet of a Deployment object is saved in kubernetes-intro/deployment.yaml.

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: nginx-server-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 5
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx-server
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: nginx-server
          image: ekababisong/ebisong-nginx-server
          ports:
            - containerPort: 80

Running Kubernetes on Local Machine with Minikube

Minikube makes it easy to install and run a single-node Kubernetes cluster on a local machine. Go to https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/install-minikube/ for instructions on installing Minikube.

  1. Install a hypervisor e.g. VirtualBox.
  2. Install Kubernetes Command line interface kubectl. For mac: 
    brew install kubernetes-cli

    Check the installed version:

    kubectl version
  3. Install Minikube. For mac: 
    brew cask install minikube

Overview of Minikube commands

Command Description
minikube status Check if Minikube is running.
minikube start Create local kubernetes cluster.
minikube stop Stop a running local kubernetes cluster.
minikube dashboard Open Minikube GUI for interacting with the Kubernetes cluster. Append & to open in background mode minikube dashboard &.
minikube ip get ip address of Kubernetes cluster.

Overview of kubectl commands

Command Description
kubectl get all list all resources.
kubectl get pods list pods.
kubectl get service list services.
kubectl get deployments --all-namespaces list deployments for all namespaces.
kubectl create -f [DEPLOYMENT_FILE.yaml] create a new resource based on the desired state in the yaml file.
kubectl apply -f [DEPLOYMENT_FILE.yaml] if the resource already exists, refresh the resource based on the yaml file.
kubectl delete -f [DEPLOYMENT_FILE.yaml] remove all resources from the yaml file.
kubectl get nodes get the nodes of the Kubernetes cluster.
kubectl delete deployment [DEPLOYMENT_NAME] delete the deployment with [DEPLOYMENT_NAME].
kubectl delete svc [SERVICE_NAME] delete the service with [SERVICE_NAME].
kubectl delete pod [POD_NAME] delete the pod with [POD_NAME].

Deploying Kubernetes on a local machine with Minikube Using kubectl

# create local kubernetes cluster
minikube start

Starting local Kubernetes v1.13.2 cluster...
Starting VM...

Getting VM IP address...
Moving files into cluster...
Setting up certs...
Connecting to cluster...
Setting up kubeconfig...
Stopping extra container runtimes...
Machine exists, restarting cluster components...
Verifying kubelet health ...
Verifying apiserver health ....
Kubectl is now configured to use the cluster.
Loading cached images from config file.

Everything looks great. Please enjoy minikube!

# navigate to the directory with deployment file
cd kubernetes-intro/

# create a new resource from yaml file
kubectl create -f deployment.yaml

service "nginx-server-service" created
deployment.extensions "nginx-server-deployment" created

# launch minikube dashboard
minikube dashboard

Verifying dashboard health ...
Launching proxy ...
Verifying proxy health ...
Opening http://127.0.0.1:54356/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/http:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/ in your default browser...
Minikube dashboard.
.
# list pods
kubectl get pods

NAME                                      READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
nginx-server-deployment-f878d8679-5ptlc   1/1       Running   0          10m
nginx-server-deployment-f878d8679-6gk26   1/1       Running   0          10m
nginx-server-deployment-f878d8679-9hdhh   1/1       Running   0          10m
nginx-server-deployment-f878d8679-pfm27   1/1       Running   0          10m
nginx-server-deployment-f878d8679-rnmhw   1/1       Running   0          10m

# get ip address of kubernetes cluster
$ minikube ip

192.168.99.102

Running Webpage on pod orchestrated by Kubernetes

Let’s access the application inside the Kubernetes cluster by running 192.168.99.102:30001. We use the port 30001 because we are accessing the application from outside the cluster.

App running on Kuberbetes.
.

Delete the Deployment and Stop Minikube

# delete the deployment
kubectl delete -f deployment.yaml

service "nginx-server-service" deleted
deployment.extensions "nginx-server-deployment" deleted

# stop minikube
minikube stop

Stopping local Kubernetes cluster...
Machine stopped.

Deploying Kubernetes on Google Kubernetes Engine

To create and deploy resources on GCP from the local shell, the Google Command line SDK gcloud will have to be installed and configured. If this is not the case on your machine, follow the instructions at https://cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud/. Otherwise, a simpler option is to use the Google Cloud Shell which already has gcloud and kubectl (the Kubernetes Command line interface) installed.

Creating a GKE Cluster

# create a GKE cluster
gcloud container clusters create ekaba-gke-cluster

A Kubernetes cluster is created on GCP with 3 nodes (as default).

Creating cluster ekaba-gke-cluster in us-central1-a... Cluster is being deployed...done.
Created [https://container.googleapis.com/v1/projects/oceanic-sky-230504/zones/us-central1-a/clusters/ekaba-gke-cluster].
To inspect the contents of your cluster, go to: https://console.cloud.google.com/kubernetes/workload_/gcloud/us-central1-a/ekaba-gke-cluster?project=oceanic-sky-230504
kubeconfig entry generated for ekaba-gke-cluster.
NAME               LOCATION       MASTER_VERSION  MASTER_IP     MACHINE_TYPE   NODE_VERSION  NUM_NODES  STATUS
ekaba-gke-cluster  us-central1-a  1.11.7-gke.4    35.226.72.40  n1-standard-1  1.11.7-gke.4  3          RUNNING
Kuberbetes Cluster on GCP.
.

To learn more about creating clusters with Google Kubernetes Engine, visit https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/docs/how-to/creating-a-cluster.

# get the nodes of the kubernetes cluster on GKE
kubectl get nodes

NAME                                               STATUS    ROLES     AGE       VERSION
gke-ekaba-gke-cluster-default-pool-e28c64e0-8fk1   Ready     <none>    45m       v1.11.7-gke.4
gke-ekaba-gke-cluster-default-pool-e28c64e0-fmck   Ready     <none>    45m       v1.11.7-gke.4
gke-ekaba-gke-cluster-default-pool-e28c64e0-zzz1   Ready     <none>    45m       v1.11.7-gke.4

Deploy an Nginx Web Server on GKE

# navigate to directory with deployment file
cd kubernetes-intro/

# create new resource from yaml file
kubectl create -f deployment.yaml

service "nginx-server-service" created
deployment.extensions "nginx-server-deployment" created

The deployment details can be seen on the GCP Kubernetes Engine console:

Workloads on Kubernetes Engine console

Kuberbetes Engine console.
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Deployment details on GKE console

Deployment Details Page 1.
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Deployment Details Page 2.
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List pods

# list pods
kubectl get pods

NAME                                       READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
nginx-server-deployment-6d4cf7bb78-4swcb   1/1       Running   0          41m
nginx-server-deployment-6d4cf7bb78-5cdqc   1/1       Running   0          41m
nginx-server-deployment-6d4cf7bb78-bkjrp   1/1       Running   0          41m
nginx-server-deployment-6d4cf7bb78-d8b2l   1/1       Running   0          41m
nginx-server-deployment-6d4cf7bb78-mhpss   1/1       Running   0          41m

Get External IP of Pod Deployment on GKE

# get kubernetes service
kubectl get service

NAME                   TYPE           CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP      PORT(S)          AGE
kubernetes             ClusterIP      10.23.240.1     <none>           443/TCP          1h
nginx-server-service   LoadBalancer   10.23.248.194   35.188.151.138   8080:30001/TCP   57m

Application Running on GKE

Access the deployed application on GKE by running 35.188.151.138:8080.

Application on GKE.
.

Delete the Deployment on GKE

# delete the deployment
kubectl delete -f deployment.yaml

service "nginx-server-service" deleted
deployment.extensions "nginx-server-deployment" deleted

Delete the Kubernetes Cluster on GKE

# delete the kubernetes cluster
gcloud container clusters delete ekaba-gke-cluster

The following clusters will be deleted.
 - [ekaba-gke-cluster] in [us-central1-a]

Do you want to continue (Y/n)?  Y

Deleting cluster ekaba-gke-cluster...done.
Deleted [https://container.googleapis.com/v1/projects/oceanic-sky-230504/zones/us-central1-a/clusters/ekaba-gke-cluster].