Introduction

In the previous chapter, we set up our first multi-node Kubernetes cluster in a cloud environment. In this section, we're going to talk about how we operationalize a Kubernetes cluster for our application—that is, we will use the cluster to run a containerized application other than the dashboard.

Since Kubernetes has as many uses as can be imagined by a cluster operator, no two use cases for Kubernetes are alike. So, we're going to make some assumptions about the type of application that we're operationalizing our cluster for. We're going to optimize a workflow for deploying a stateless web application with a stateful backend that has high-availability requirements in a cloud-based environment. In doing so, we're hopefully going to cover a large percentage of what people generally use Kubernetes clusters for.

Kubernetes can be used for just about anything. Even if what we cover does not exactly match your use case for Kubernetes,...