What is Container Orchestration?
Container technologies such as Docker are becoming increasingly popular for packaging programs based on a microservices architecture. Containers can be made to be very scalable and manufactured on demand.
At the same time, this is adequate for a few containers, and the picture has hundreds of them. When the number of containers increases dynamically with demand, managing the container lifetime and management becomes incredibly complex.
Container orchestration addresses the issue by automating container scheduling, deployment, scalability, load balancing, availability, and networking. The automation and management of the container and service lifecycles are referred to as container orchestration.
Table Of Contents:
Tools that are commonly used
Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an open-source technology created by Google that is now managed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. It allows declarative configuration as well as automation. It can aid in automating containerized workload and service deployment, scaling, and management.
The Kubernetes API facilitates communication between users, cluster components, and third-party components. The control plane and nodes run on a group of nodes known as the cluster.
We have a whole article on Kubernetes. Have a look at it.
Features
- Load balancing and service discovery
- Storage management
- Rollouts and rollbacks that are automated
- Scaling horizontally
- Management of secrets and configurations
- Self-healing
- Execution in batches
- Dual-stack IPv4/IPv6
- Automated bin packing
OpenShift
OpenShift Container Platform as a Service is provided by Redhat (PaaS). It aids in automating applications in hybrid cloud settings using safe and scalable resources. It delivers enterprise-grade platforms for containerized application development, deployment, and management.
The OpenShift Container Platform, OpenShift Online, and OpenShift Dedicated are all powered by the OpenShift (Origin Community Distribution) open-source upstream community effort.
Nomad
Nomad is a simple, versatile, and user-friendly workload orchestrator for deploying and managing containers and non-containerized applications at scale across on-premises and cloud environments. It is available for macOS, Windows, and Linux as a single binary with a tiny resource footprint.
Developers deploy their apps using declarative infrastructure-as-code, which defines how an application should be distributed. It recovers apps from errors automatically.
Feature:
- Simple and dependable
- Easy Federation at Scale Proven Scalability
- Integrations with Terraform, Consul, and Vault Multi-Cloud are made simple natively.
Docker Swarm
A declarative model is used by Docker Swarm. You can specify the intended state of the service, and Docker will keep it there. Kubernetes and Swarm have been integrated into Docker Enterprise Edition. Docker now allows for the selection of an orchestration engine. The Docker engine CLI is used to deliver application services across a swarm of Docker engines.
To interface with the cluster, Docker commands are used. Nodes are machines that join the group, and the swarm manager manages the group’s activity.
Features
- Cluster administration coupled with Docker Engine
- Decentralized design
- Model of declarative service
- Scaling
- State reconciliation is desired.
- Networking with multiple hosts
- Discovering a Service
- Balanced load
- By default, security is enabled.
- Continuous updates
Docker Compose
Docker Compose is used to define and operate multi-container applications that collaborate. “Docker-compose” is a term that refers to sets of interconnected services that share software dependencies and are coordinated and scaled collectively.
You can configure your application’s services using a YAML file (a “docker file”). Then, you construct and run the services specified in your setup using the docker-compose-up command.
Using Docker Compose, you can factor the app code into numerous separately running services that communicate via an internal network. The product includes a CLI for managing your applications’ whole lifespan.
Feature
- On a single host, multiple isolated environments exist.
- When creating containers, save volume data. Only recreate containers that have changed variables or moved a composition between environments.
MiniKube
Kubernetes enables users to run Kubernetes on their own machines. Minikube allows you to test applications locally on your computer within a single-node cluster. Minikube includes built-in support for the Kubernetes Dashboard.
Feature
- Load Distribution.
- Multi-cluster.
- Volumes That Remain Consistent
- NodePorts.
- Secrets and ConfigMaps.
- Container Execution Time: Containerized, Docker, and CRI-O.
- Making CNI Possible (Container Network Interface).
Marathon
Marathon is for Apache Mesos, which can orchestrate both frameworks and applications.
An open-source cluster management system is Apache Mesos. Apache’s Mesos project may execute workloads that are both containerized and non-containerized.
To assign tasks to agent nodes, frameworks collaborate with the master. To schedule tasks, users communicate with the Marathon framework.
Features
- Highly available
- Stateful apps
- Stunning and potent UI Constraints
- Detecting Services & Load Balancing
- A health checkup
- Metrics for Event Subscriptions
- REST API
Cloudify
An open-source platform for managing the lifetime of containers and microservices and automating deployment is called Cloudify. It offers functions including on-demand clusters, auto-healing, and infrastructure-level scaling. Cloudify can orchestrate services that use container platforms and manage container infrastructure.
Container clusters can be built, repaired, scaled, and disassembled with the aid of Cloudify. Container orchestration is essential to give container administrators a scalable and highly available infrastructure. Cloudify offers the ability to organize diverse services across platforms.
Containership
Containership is a platform for deploying and managing multi-cloud Kubernetes infrastructure. A single tool can work in public, private, and on-premise environments. It enables the provisioning, management, and monitoring of clusters across all major cloud providers.
Containership is developed with cloud-native tools such as Terraform for provisioning, Prometheus for monitoring, and Calico for networking and policy administration. It is set on top of the standard Kubernetes.
Features
- Audit Logs for Multicloud Dashboards
- Support for GPU Instances
- Non-disruptive Improvements
- Master Scheduling
- Metrics for Integration
- Logging in Real Time
- Deployments with no downtime
- Support for Long-Term Storage
- Private Registry Assistance
- Workload Autoscaling
- SSH Key Administration
AZK
AZK is a free and open-source orchestration tool for development environments that uses a manifest file (Azkfile.js) to help it work. Developers install, configure, and run commonly used tools for developing web applications with various open-source technologies.
Azkfile.js files can be recycled to create new components or to add more. It can be shared, ensuring complete parity between development environments on different programmers’ PCs and reducing the likelihood of issues during release.
GKE
For the orchestration of container applications on the Google Cloud Platform, GKE offers a completely managed solution. The platform powers GKE clusters. Using the Kubernetes CLI, you may communicate with groups.
Applications may be deployed and managed, administrative operations can be carried out, policies can be created, and the health of deployed workloads can be monitored using Kubernetes commands.
You can develop and serve application containers with the help of the CI/CD tools provided by Google Cloud. A Container Registry can be used to store your container images, and Cloud Build can be used to create container images (like Docker) from various source code sources.
AKS
Serverless Kubernetes, security, and governance are all included in Azure’s fully managed Kubernetes service, or AKS. Your cluster is managed by AKS, making installing containerized apps simple.
AKS configures every Kubernetes master and node automatically. Only the agent nodes need to be addressed and kept up with. AKS is free. The only nodes in your cluster for which you must pay are agent nodes, not masters.
An AKS cluster can be set up programmatically or through the Azure portal. Advanced networking, Azure Active Directory integration, and monitoring using Azure Monitor are additional features that Azure also enables.