GETTING EDGY VIDEO SERIES

Getting Edgy: Clusters, Nodes, Pods, and Containers — Oh My!

What’s the difference between a cluster, a node, a pod, and a container in Kubernetes?

Kelsey Evans
Ambassador Labs

Kubernetes introduces a lot of new vocabulary. Today, we will break down Kubernetes into several layers of abstraction from smallest to largest.

Container

A container bundles code and dependencies into one standard uniit of software, called a “container image”. This container image isolates code from the environment allowing the application to run consistently regardless of infrastructure or computing environment.

Pod

The first layer of Kubernetes-native abstractions, a pod is a way to bundle up and package containers into one logical grouping that represents a process in your cluster. A pod can have one or more containers that will all share the same environment.

Node

A node is the actual machine your pods are running on. They can be bare metal or virtual machines.

Cluster

A cluster is a grouping and management abstraction for nods. All of the orchestration and networking magic happens at the cluster level.

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