Getting Started with Kubernetes: A Beginner's Guide

Kubernetes has become the de facto standard for container orchestration. This guide will help you understand the fundamentals and deploy your first application.

What is Kubernetes?

Kubernetes (often abbreviated as K8s) is an open-source platform for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Originally developed by Google, it's now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).

Core Concepts

Pods

A Pod is the smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes. It represents a single instance of a running process and can contain one or more containers that share storage and network resources.

Services

Services provide a stable network endpoint for accessing pods. Since pods are ephemeral and can be replaced at any time, services ensure consistent connectivity.

Deployments

Deployments manage the desired state of your application. They handle rolling updates, rollbacks, and scaling of pods.

Your First Deployment

Here's a simple example of deploying an nginx web server:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: nginx-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: nginx:1.21
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80

Best Practices

• Always use resource limits to prevent runaway containers
• Implement health checks (liveness and readiness probes)
• Use namespaces to organize resources
• Store configuration in ConfigMaps and secrets in Secrets
• Use labels consistently for organization and selection

Next Steps

Once you're comfortable with the basics, explore these advanced topics:

• Helm charts for package management
• Ingress controllers for HTTP routing
• Horizontal Pod Autoscaling
• Network policies for security