Container orchestration is the automated process of coordinating and organizing all aspects of individual containers, their functions, and their dynamic environments. Container deployment and scaling, networking, and maintenance are all aspects of orchestrating containers.
A single application can have hundreds of containers. The number of containers you use could be thousands if you use micro-services based applications.
Managing all of these containers manually is challenging. So DevOps engineers use automation to ease and optimize container orchestration.
Using container orchestration, engineers can manage when and how containers start and stop, schedule and coordinate components’ activities, monitor health, distribute updates, and institute failover and recovery processes.
Engineers who work in DevOps cultures use container orchestration platforms and tools to automate that process throughout the lifecycle of containers.
Modern orchestration tools use declarative programming to ease container deployments and management. This is different from using imperative language. The declarative approach lets engineers define the desired outcome without feeding the tool with the step-by-step details of how to do it.
Key features of container orchestration include:
Deployment Automation:
Orchestration tools automate the deployment of containerised applications across a cluster of machines. They handle tasks such as distributing containers, starting or stopping services, and managing configurations.
Scaling:
Orchestration allows for easy scaling of containerised applications by adding or removing instances of containers based on demand. This ensures that the application can handle varying workloads efficiently.
Load Balancing:
Orchestration tools often include load balancing capabilities to distribute incoming traffic across multiple instances of a containerised application. This helps optimise resource usage and improve performance.
Service Discovery:
Containers can be dynamically assigned IP addresses, and orchestration tools provide service discovery mechanisms, allowing containers to find and communicate with each other seamlessly.
Health Monitoring and Self-healing:
Orchestration tools monitor the health of containers and services. If a container or node fails, the orchestration system can automatically reschedule or replace the failed components to ensure high availability.
Configuration Management:
Orchestration tools manage the configuration of containers and services, ensuring consistency across the entire cluster. This includes setting environment variables, managing secrets, and handling other configuration aspects.
Popular container orchestration tools include:
Kubernetes
Developed by Google, Kubernetes is one of the most widely used container orchestration platforms. It provides a robust set of features for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerised applications.
Docker Swarm
Docker Swarm is Docker's native clustering and orchestration solution. It allows users to create and manage a swarm of Docker nodes, making it easy to deploy and scale applications.
Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service): A fully managed container orchestration service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Azure's managed Kubernetes service, providing easy deployment, management, and scaling of containerised applications using Kubernetes.
OpenShift
An enterprise Kubernetes platform developed by Red Hat, which adds additional features and tools to enhance Kubernetes for enterprise use.
Container orchestration is a crucial aspect of modern application deployment, especially in micro-services architectures where applications are composed of multiple small, independent services.
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