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Lets talk about some of the popular container orchestration tools available in the market.
What is a Container Orchestration?
Container platforms likeDockerare very popular these days to package applications based on a microservices architecture.
Containers can be made highly scalable, which can be created on-demand.
While this is good for a few containers but imagine you have hundreds of them.
It becomes extremely difficult to manage the container lifecycle and its management when numbers increase dynamically with demand.
Container orchestration is the automation and management of the lifecycle of containers and services.
It is a process of managing and organizing multiple containers and microservices architecture at scale.
Luckily, there are many container orchestration tools available in the market.
Kubernetes
You guessed it, isnt it?
Kubernetesis an open-source platform that was originally designed by Google and now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
Kubernetes supports both declarative configuration and automation.
It can help to automate deployment, scaling, and management of containerized workload and services.
Kubernetes API helps to establish communication between users, cluster components, and external third-party components.
Kubernetes control plane and Nodes run on a group of nodes that together form the cluster.
program workload consists of one or more Pods that runs on Worker node(s).
The control plane manages Pods and worker nodes.
Companies like Babylon, Booking.com, AppDirect extensively use Kubernetes.
Features
Want to learn Kubernetes?
Check out these learning resources.
OpenShift
Redhat offersOpenShiftContainer Platform as a Service (PaaS).
It helps in the automation of applications on secure and scalable resources in hybrid cloud environments.
It provides enterprise-grade platforms for building, deployment, and managing containerized applications.
Its built on Redhat enterprise Linux and Kubernetes engine.
Openshift has various functionalities to manage clusters via UI and CLI.
Developers use declarative infrastructure-as-code (IaC) for deploying their applications and define how an system should be deployed.
Nomad automatically recovers applications from failures.
Nomad Orchestrate applications of any key in (not just containers).
It provides First-class support for Docker, Windows, Java, VMs, and more.
Docker Swarm
Docker Swarmuses a declarative model.
Docker Enterprise Edition has integrated Kubernetes with Swarm.
Docker is now providing flexibility in the choice of orchestration engine.
Docker engine CLI is used to create a swarm of docker engines where app services can be deployed.
Docker commandsare used to interact with the cluster.
Docker-compose describes groups of interconnected services that share software dependencies and are orchestrated and scaled together.
you could use a YAML file (dockerfile) to configure your applications services.
Then, with a docker-compose up command, you create and start all the services from your configuration.
The tool provides CLI for managing the entire lifecycle of your applications.
The Docker Engine may be a stand-alone instance provisioned with Docker Machine or an entire Docker Swarm cluster.
MiniKube
Minikubeallows users to run Kubernetes locally.
Minikube has integrated support for theKubernetes Dashboard.
Minikube runs the latest stable release of Kubernetes and supports the following features.
Cloudify
Cloudifyis an open-source cloud orchestration tool for deployment automation and lifecycle management of containers and microservices.
It provides features such as clusters on-demand, auto-healing, and scaling at the infrastructure level.
Cloudify can manage container infrastructure and orchestrate the services that run on container platforms.
It can be easily integrated with Docker and Docker-based container managers, including the following.
Cloudify can help to create, heal, scale, and tear down container clusters.
Container orchestration is key in providing a scalable and highly-available infrastructure on which container managers can run.
Cloudify provides the ability to orchestrate heterogeneous services across platforms.
it’s possible for you to deploy applications using the CLI and Cloudify Manager.
Rancher
Rancheris an open-source platform that uses container orchestration known as cattle.
It allows you to leverage orchestration services like Kubernetes, Swarm, Mesos.
Rancher 2.x allows the management of Kubernetes clusters running on the customer-specified providers.
Getting started with Rancher is two steps process.
Install a supported version of Docker on the host.
Containership
Containership is for enabling the deployment and management of multi-cloud Kubernetes infrastructure.
Its flexible to operate in the public, private cloud, and on-premise environments from a single tool.
It enables to provision, management, and monitoring of your Kubernetes clusters across all major cloud providers.
It is built on top of vanilla Kubernetes.
The Containership platform offers an intuitive dashboard, as well as powerful REST API for complex automation.
AZK uses containers instead of virtual machines.
Containers are like virtual machines, with better performance and lower consumption of physical resources.
Azkfile.js files can be reused to add new components or create new ones from scratch.
GKE
GKEprovides a fully managed solution for container applications orchestration on Google Cloud Platform.
GKE clusters are powered by the Kubernetes.
you could interact with clusters using Kubernetes CLI.
Google Cloud provides CI/CD tools to help you build and serve utility containers.
GKE is an enterprise-ready solution with prebuilt deployment templates.
Interested in learning GKE?
Check out thisbeginner course.
AKS manages your Kubernetes cluster and allows you to easily deploy containerized applications.
AKS automatically configures all Kubernetes master and nodes.
You only need to manage and maintain the agent nodes.
AKS is free; you only pay for agent nodes within your cluster and not for masters.
you’re able to create an AKS cluster in the Azure portal or programmatically.
AKS also supports Windows Server containers.
Its cluster and deployed program performance can be monitored from Azure Monitor.
Logs are stored in an Azure Log Analytics workspace.
AKS has been certified as Kubernetes conformant.
AWS EKS
AWS EKSis a fully-managed Kubernetes service.
AWS allows you to run your EKS cluster using AWS Fragrate, which is aserverless computefor containers.
Fragrance removes the need to provision and manage servers, allowing pay per resource per tool.
EKS integrates with AWS App mesh and provides Kubernetes native experience.
EKS runs the latest Kubernetes and is certified Kubernetes conformant.
Next, find outKubernetes Management Software.
