Why Do We Need Kubernetes?

This conversation about the utility of Kubernetes is split into two parts:

• Understanding why technology companies need Kubernetes
• Explaining why the user community needs Kubernetes

Both are important and play a major role in why Kubernetes is here for the long haul. Some of these points will also help you avoid potential pitfalls when starting out with Kubernetes.

Why tech companies need Kubernetes

It all starts with AWS.

In the mid-to-late 2000’s, Amazon fired a rocket up the proverbial backside of the tech industry, and the world has not been the same since.

Prior to 2006, there was a status quo in the tech industry. Most of the big tech companies were making easy money selling servers, network switches, storage arrays, licenses for monolithic applications, and many other things. Then, from way out in the left-field, Amazon launched AWS and turned their world upside down. It was the birth of modern cloud computing.

At first, none of the big players paid much attention to this new development. They were too busy raking in the cash from selling the same old stuff they’d been selling for decades. In fact, some of the major tech companies thought they could end the threat of AWS through campaigns dedicated to spreading misinformation about it. They started out by saying that the cloud wasn’t a real thing. When that didn’t work, they admitted it was real, and immediately rebranded their existing products as “cloud”. When that also didn’t work, they started building their own clouds, and they’ve been playing catch-up ever since.

Two things to note here.

Firstly, that is the condensed version of cloud history, according to Nigel.

Secondly , the misinformation initially spread by the technology industry is known as “fear, uncertainty, and doubt” (FUD).

Once AWS started stealing customers and potential business, the industry needed a counter-attack. Their first major retaliation was OpenStack. To keep a long story short, OpenStack was a community project that tried to create an open-source alternative to AWS. It was a noble project and a lot of good people contributed to it. But ultimately, it never came close to threatening AWS.Amazon had gotten too strong of a head start. OpenStack tried hard, but AWS brushed it aside without skipping a beat.

Hence, it was back to the drawing board for the industry.

A brief history of Kubernetes

While all of this was happening, and even before, Google was using Linux containers to run most of its services at a massive scale. Google has been deploying billions of containers per week for as long as anyone can remember

Borg

Scheduling and managing these billions of containers was a proprietary internal Google tool called Borg. Google being Google, they learned a bunch of lessons using Borg and built a newer system called Omega.