Cluster API and Declarative Kubernetes Management: The Modern Way to Manage and Run Containers at Scale in Production

Although Kubernetes continues to be today's dominant container orchestration tool, running and managing Kubernetes is no easy task. Setting up and maintaining a Kubernetes cluster alone is complicated, and inconsistencies between various Kubernetes providers often compound the problem. This report introduces Cluster API, an open source CNCF project to bring declarative, Kubernetes-style APIs to cluster creation, configuration, and management. In this report, Spectro Cloud cofounders Tenry Fu and Saad Malik evaluate Cluster API's role as the foundation for holistic modern container management. IT operations and DevOps teams will explore the evolution of Kubernetes management approaches and learn how Cluster API can drive consistency and improve operational efficiency. Modern software architecture relies on cloud native, containerized, distributed applications on cloud, virtualized, bare metal, and even edge infrastructure. Containerized applications use resources more efficiently, run in a broad variety of environments, and make it easy to scale up and down dynamically. As applications scale and become more complex, automation and orchestration become ever more important. Kubernetes is the dominant container orchestration tool and continues to strengthen its hold in the enterprise as companies deploy increasing numbers of clusters across a variety of environments. Kubernetes operationalizes the management of containerized applications, bringing consistency across applications and environments—once the cluster is set up. But setting up and maintaining a Kubernetes cluster is itself a complicated proposition, especially at scale, and the challenges can differ from one environment to another.