Agent orchestration

As explained in Podman in Action: Secure, rootless containers for Kubernetes, microservices, and more

A container orchestrator is a system that schedules and manages container workloads across one or more machines.

Container orchestration schedules and manages container workloads across multiple machines or nodes. Orchestrators communicate with container engines, which run containers locally; container runtimes configure Linux kernel isolation and launch the application. section 1.1

Use the boundaries between these roles to choose the right tool:

• Use an orchestrator for multi-machine workloads; Kubernetes is the primary example, alongside Docker Swarm and Apache Mesos. section 1.1
• Use Podman or Docker to develop, manage, and run containers on one host, in rootless or rootful mode. section 1.1 section 1.4
• Use CRI-O or containerd as engines serving Kubernetes, rather than treating Podman as a multi-machine orchestrator. section 1.1 section 1.4

Figure 1.1 Different open source projects dealing with containers within the categories of orchestrators, engines, and runtimes.

Compare open-source projects by their role as orchestrators, container engines, or OCI runtimes. section 1.1

How Podman in Action: Secure, rootless containers for Kubernetes, microservices, and more covers it

How deep it goes

Distinguishes orchestrators, engines, and runtimes, but stops short of deployment procedures or scheduling internals.

Examples

Names Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, and Apache Mesos as orchestrators, with CRI-O and containerd serving Kubernetes.

What you can do after

Evaluate whether a workload needs a single-host container engine or a multi-machine orchestrator.

How it connects

Connects Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, Apache Mesos, container engines, and OCI container runtimes.

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Also explained in

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  Generative AI in ActionContainer orchestration is the automated deployment, scheduling, scaling, networking, and management of containers.
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  AI Agents in Action, Second EditionAn orchestrator is an agent that maintains a plan, delegates subtasks to worker agents, evaluates their results, and decides how execution continues.
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  AI Agents and ApplicationsA supervisor agent is an agent that coordinates a group of more granular agents to accomplish a larger task.
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  Effective Platform EngineeringA container orchestration platform manages the deployment, scheduling, scaling, and operation of containerized workloads.
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  Kubernetes for DevelopersA container orchestrator is a platform that schedules, operates, scales, and maintains containerized workloads across compute resources.
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  Acing the CCNA Exam: Volume 2 Advanced Networking and SecurityA container orchestrator is software that automates the deployment, management, and scaling of containers.
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  Introduction to Generative AI, Second EditionAn orchestration framework is a software framework for coordinating agents, tools, memory, roles, and task execution.
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  Data Pipelines with Apache Airflow, Second EditionA container orchestration system is software that coordinates the deployment, execution, scaling, and distribution of containers across multiple machines.
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  Financial AI in PracticeOrchestration is the coordination and scheduling of multiple tasks, processes, or services in a workflow.
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  Building Reliable AI SystemsThe coordination and sequencing of multiple task steps to accomplish a larger objective.

Compare how 11 books explain agent orchestration →

Related concepts

• Kubernetesincludes · Kubernetes is an open-source platform for orchestrating and automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized workloads across computing clusters.
• containeruses · A software container is an isolated execution environment that packages an application and its dependencies while sharing the host operating system kernel.
• Docker Composeincludes · Docker Compose is a tool for defining and running applications composed of multiple containers through declarative configuration.
• distributed systemkind of · A distributed system is a computing system whose components run across multiple networked processes or machines and coordinate through communication.
• AI agentuses · An AI agent is a computational system that uses artificial intelligence to interpret information, select actions, and pursue goals through interaction with an environment.

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Podman in Action: Secure, rootless containers for Kubernetes, microservices, and more. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.