Welcome

Thank you for purchasing the MEAP version of our book Core Kubernetes. There are two critical components to moving into a Cloud-Native world. The first, often the most laborious process, is to ensure that your applications can work in a Kubernetes cluster decoupled from static hardware, storage, and infrastructure. The second is picking a Kubernetes architecture: cluster sizes, storage types, container runtimes, network plugin, security model, and application automation system which works for your operations and developer teams.

This book helps with the latter, and some with the former.  These architectural decisions require engineers to understand the internal implementation details of Kubernetes, and our goal is to make you genuinely comfortable in the art of reasoning about these concepts. With the recent emergence of Kubernetes, the industry is still determining best practices. However, there are zones of innovation that have created well-defined lanes.

As you go about your Kubernetes Journey, we envision that you'll keep this book by your bedside to soak in a diagram or a half a chapter after a long day. Or, possibly, to settle deeply into one or two of the labs on a free weekend afternoon. We've strived to throw a curveball out on almost every page so that even the most advanced Kubernetes engineer can walk away with a newfound perspective on their infrastructure.