Introduction to ConfigMaps

Most business applications have two components:

• The application

• The configuration

Simple examples include web servers such as NGINX or httpd (Apache). Neither is much use without a configuration. However, as soon as we add a configuration, they become very useful.

In the past, we packaged the application and the configuration into a single easy-to-deploy unit. We brought this pattern with us as we moved into the early days of cloud-native microservices. However, it’s an anti-pattern, and modern applications should be decoupled from their configurations. Doing this brings the following benefits:

• Reuse

• Simpler development and testing

• Simpler and less disruptive changes ...