Introduction

In the previous chapters, you learned about application containerization, how Kubernetes works, and some of the "proper nouns" or "objects" in Kubernetes that allow you to create a declarative-style application architecture that Kubernetes will execute on your behalf.

Software and hardware instability are a reality in all environments. As applications need higher and higher availability, shortcomings in the infrastructure become more obvious. Kubernetes was purpose-built to help solve this challenge for containerized applications. But what about Kubernetes itself? As cluster operators, do we shift from watching our individual servers like hawks to watching our single Kubernetes control infrastructure?

As it turns out, this aspect was one of the design considerations for Kubernetes. One of the design goals of Kubernetes is to be able to withstand instability in its own infrastructure. This means that when set up properly, the Kubernetes control...