What is containerization – docker and kubernetes?

Docker – the standard for containerization

Docker is currently the most popular platform for creating, distributing and running containers. It has simplified the containerization process and contributed to its mass adoption. Docker allows developers to easily “package” an application into a lightweight, portable container image (Docker image), which can then be run as a container (Docker container) on any machine with Docker installed (e.g., on a developer’s laptop, test server or in the cloud).

Benefits of containerization (Docker)

Containerization using Docker brings many benefits:

• Portability: an application packaged in a container works the same regardless of the environment (development, test, production, cloud), which eliminates problems like “it worked for me”.
• Consistency of environments: Containers provide an identical runtime environment for all team members and at all stages of the application lifecycle.
• Speed and lightweight: Containers start up much faster than traditional virtual machines and use fewer resources (memory, CPU) because they do not require a separate operating system.
• Isolation: containers provide isolation of processes and resources, which increases security and stability.
• Resource efficiency: You can run many more containers than VMs on a single server.
• Support for microservices: Containerization is ideal for deploying applications based on microservices architecture, where each service runs in its own container.

Kubernetes – container orchestration

As the number of containers in a system grows, managing them manually becomes very difficult. This is where container orchestration systems come to the rescue, the most popular of which is Kubernetes (often abbreviated as K8s). Kubernetes is an open source platform for automating the deployment, scaling and management of containerized applications at scale, in clustered environments.

Kubernetes functionalities

Kubernetes offers a wide range of functionality, including:

• Automatic deployment and rollback of changes (rollout/rollback).
• Automatic scaling of applications based on workload.
• Self-repair: Automatically restart or replace containers that have failed.
• Service discovery (service discovery) and load balancing (load balancing).
• Configuration and secret management.
• Storage orchestration.

Relevance to Cloud Native and DevOps

Containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes) are fundamental technologies supporting cloud native approaches and DevOps practices. They enable building, deploying and managing modern, scalable and fault-tolerant applications in an automated and efficient manner.

Summary

Containerization, popularized by Docker, is revolutionizing the way applications are packaged and deployed, providing portability and consistent environments. Kubernetes has become the standard for large-scale container orchestration, automating the management of complex applications. Together, these technologies are the foundation of modern cloud software development and delivery.