Top 10 Kubernetes Tools
Kubernetes encompasses a vast and growing ecosystem that supports a wealth of features to deploy, scale and manage container-based applications and services. Most importantly, you can take advantage of Kubernetes to configure and deploy complex applications in no time. It has revolutionized the delivery and management of containerized workloads and services.
Kubernetes tools help you to integrate Kubernetes with other DevOps processes. They also help simplify how you work with Kubernetes, thereby enabling you to easily create new clusters, check your workloads and track consumption and costs. This article digs into the top Kubernetes tools (both proprietary and open source) that can help you get the most out of Kubernetes.
Exploring the Key Kubernetes Tools
Here are the key Kubernetes tools at a glance:
kubectl
Kubectl is the most widely accepted of all the available Kubernetes tools. It is a command-line tool that allows users to manage a Kubernetes cluster through command line interface or CLI. Since Kubernetes is an orchestration platform, it is worthwhile to learn the basic CLI commands to manage your clusters efficiently.
You can use Kubectl to add new objects and visualize the resources and apply updates declaratively. Kubectl can help you organize and monitor the clusters, debug them and use them for management tasks.
Helm
As a package manager for Kubernetes, Helm is an essential tool for developers. You can take advantage of it to deploy, upgrade and manage your Kubernetes applications easily. Helm uses Tiller server, an architectural component of a k8s cluster that is responsible for managing applications that run in k8s. The k8s API server interacts with Tiller facilitating querying, installing and upgrading k8s’ resources.
Helm enables the use of command line tools to manage deployment components using Helm charts. For upgrade or installation of the charts, it connects to the Tiller server. Charts are packaging format used to manage k8s resources. Helm charts make it easy to configure, install and upgrade Kubernetes applications.
k9s
To manage your Kubernetes clusters effectively, you can take advantage of the k9s tool. This is a terminal-based user interface used to manage Kubernetes clusters. It provides a basic CLI interface for browsing and editing Kubernetes resources. It includes support for real-time monitoring and management without frequently executing Kubectl commands.
Kustomize
Kustomize is a standalone binary tool as well as a feature of kubectl that makes it possible to customize YAML configurations for Kubernetes without using templates. It is incorporated in Kubectl starting from version 1.14 and can help you create YAML files for varied Kubernetes environments. Kustomize is a configuration management tool for Kubernetes, which modifies a Kubernetes object definition by adding, deleting or updating the configuration options non linearly.
Grafana
Grafana is a tool for visualizing and monitoring data. Grafana is a free, lightweight tool for Kubernetes, which is used for creating dashboards that can connect with several data sources, such as, AWS Cloud watch, Stackdriver and Prometheus. Today, many organizations worldwide use Grafana to monitor Kubernetes workloads.
It can help you create reusable reports and dynamic graphics with effective data representation. Grafana can work with Prometheus to display metrics and alerts for your Kubernetes clusters. It can also help you create customizable dashboards and monitor system health by providing alerts.
Istio
Istio layers are used in the management of microservices architecture. They provide features such as security, observability and traffic management. It is a service mesh for Kubernetes, which can automate your Kubernetes deployments, sync Kubernetes clusters with the desired state available in the Git and provides support for the continuous delivery of your Kubernetes clusters by taking advantage of GitOps principles. Running on top of k8s and also on other workloads, Istio provides common centralized traffic control, analytical telemetry and security to advanced deployments.
Jaeger
In a typical Kubernetes implementation, the services are distributed — often spread across nodes that may or may not reside in the same network. This can make troubleshooting and monitoring applications challenging. Here’s exactly where Jaeger comes to the rescue.
Jaeger is an open-source, cloud-native solution used for tracing transactions in a distributed environment. It can parse distributed transactions in Kubernetes and be used to monitor the performance and behavior of microservices applications. Jaeger is 100% cloud-native and infinitely scalable across both operation and deployment.
Each microservice running in the context of Kubernetes cluster sends data to a Jaeger agent, which in turn redirects this information to a Jaeger collector. You can integrate Jaeger with Kubernetes using Helm charts, Kubernetes operators or manual configurations.
Prometheus
Prometheus is an open-source toolkit that allows users to monitor and send alert notifications about Kubernetes clusters. It takes advantage of a pull-based approach to collect metrics and record labels as optional key-value pairs. Prometheus enables you to configure real-time notifications and gain visibility into your Kubernetes containerized workloads and APIs.
Using Prometheus monitoring, you can execute flexible queries and use real-time notifications to keep track of your microservices and containers. The metrics are stored as time-series data in Prometheus. This data includes information related to the time at which the metric was recorded together with key-value pairs called labels.
Minikube
Using Minikube, you can develop and test Kubernetes applications using a local Kubernetes cluster. You can take advantage of Minikube to create single-node or multi-node clusters in Kubernetes. It should be noted that Minikube supports several container runtimes. You can take advantage of Minikube to set up and configure your local Kubernetes clusters on Windows, Linux and macOS platforms.
Lens
Lens is an integrated development environment (IDE) for Kubernetes, which can run on Windows, Linux and macOS platforms. It provides a powerful user interface with support for Helm charts, app templates, metrics monitoring and multi-cluster connectivity. It allows users to switch between various Kubernetes clusters without the need to issue any kubectl commands and provides real-time metrics and logging.
Conclusion
There is a plethora of tools related to Kubernetes, which helps developers, operations teams and organizations working with container-based applications. With organizational growth and the increased use of cloud management systems, there is an expected increase in the emphasis for better and more efficient management of the Kubernetes clusters.
To select the most suitable Kubernetes tool for your project, consider your organizational needs and the purpose and objectives of the project. However, make sure to keep yourself updated with the most recent developments to ensure you can harness the full potential of Kubernetes, thereby giving you a competitive edge and making you proactive in managing your Kubernetes strategy.
