Basics of Kubernetes

The Basics section introduces you to the fundamental concepts that form the foundation of Kubernetes. Before diving into architecture, API details, or advanced features, it’s essential to understand what Kubernetes is, how it organizes resources, and what the basic building blocks are.

Think of this section as learning the alphabet before learning to read. These concepts appear everywhere in Kubernetes, and understanding them deeply will make everything else easier to grasp. Whether you’re deploying applications, troubleshooting issues, or designing architectures, you’ll constantly reference these basics.

What Are the Basics?

The basics of Kubernetes cover three essential concepts:

What Kubernetes Is - Understanding Kubernetes’ purpose, capabilities, and role in container orchestration
Cluster vs Namespace - How Kubernetes organizes resources at different levels
Pods - The fundamental unit of deployment in Kubernetes

These concepts are interconnected. Kubernetes runs in clusters, clusters contain namespaces, and namespaces contain pods (and other resources). Understanding this hierarchy and the purpose of each level is crucial for effective Kubernetes usage.

Why These Basics Matter

Every operation in Kubernetes relates back to these basics:

When you deploy an application, you’re creating pods in a namespace within a cluster
When you troubleshoot, you’re examining pods, checking namespaces, or investigating cluster-level issues
When you design architectures, you’re organizing pods across namespaces and planning cluster topology
When you configure security, you’re setting policies at the pod, namespace, or cluster level

Mastering these basics gives you a mental model for understanding everything else Kubernetes does.

Core Concepts

Kubernetes: The Container Orchestrator

Kubernetes is a container orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It takes the complexity of managing containers across multiple machines and provides a unified API and control plane to handle it all.

Clusters: The Foundation

A Kubernetes cluster is a set of machines (nodes) that run containerized applications. The cluster provides the infrastructure and coordination needed to run your workloads reliably. Everything in Kubernetes exists within a cluster.

Namespaces: Logical Organization

Namespaces provide a way to divide cluster resources between multiple users, teams, or projects. They’re like folders in a file system—they help organize and isolate resources without requiring separate clusters.

Pods: The Atomic Unit

Pods are the smallest deployable units in Kubernetes. A pod contains one or more containers that share storage and network resources. When you deploy an application to Kubernetes, you’re ultimately creating pods that run your containers.

Learning Path

We recommend reading these topics in order:

What is Kubernetes? - Start here to understand Kubernetes’ purpose and capabilities
Cluster vs Namespace - Learn how Kubernetes organizes resources
Pods 101 - Understand the fundamental unit of deployment

Each topic builds on the previous one, creating a complete picture of Kubernetes basics.

Topics

What is Kubernetes? - Introduction to Kubernetes and container orchestration
Cluster vs Namespace - Understanding Kubernetes resource organization
Pods 101 - Introduction to pods, the smallest deployable units