Eli5: What is Kubernetes in software development?
In: Engineering
Unfortunately, trying to explain Kubernetes to a 5yo, or even to an adult who has no previous knowledge of software development, is going to involve a chain of “first you have to know this”.
A computer program is a set of instructions for a computer to execute. All computer programs are written with some assumptions about the computer and the computing environment in which that program is to run, and so the program is dependent on those assumptions, i.e., they have to be true in order for a computer to execute the program.
The assumptions vary widely, i.e., different computer programs assume and depend on different things. Some computer programs can be put into “containers”; you can think of a container as a collection of things needed for a particular computer program to run. Some might need a database connection, some are written to be executed within a web server environment, some might need a library of instructions or a “virtual machine”. Once a computer program has been written, assuming it is able to be packaged with a particular type of container, is put together in this software container with all the libraries, database connections, other programs, etc. that it needs to execute.
Kubernetes is a set of tools for dealing with a particular type of container. It lets computer people (programmers, system administrators, etc.) list, add, delete, execute, move, observe, etc. a collection of these containers.
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