A popular solution to effectively manage Kubernetes, 7 DevOps tools manage Kubernetes, cluster management is easier, smoother and more efficient.
In the emerging cloud-native environment, Kubernetes is everywhere. It has become the standard for orchestrating containers. However, managing multiple Kubernetes clusters, which must run everywhere in a consistent and secure manner, presents a new set of challenges. Hence, the need for Kubernetes management tools arises.
Let's explore some popular solutions for effectively managing Kubernetes.
1. K9s
k9s is a terminal-based resource dashboard. It only has a command line interface. Whatever you do on the Kubernetes dashboard web UI, you can do the same with this terminal k9s dashboard utility.
It keeps an eye on the Kubernetes cluster and provides commands to work with the resources defined on the cluster.
Here are the features of K9s: Cluster
real-time tracking
Use K9s skins to customize views
Easily traverse Kubernetes resources
Drill down options to check for cluster resource issues
Provide extensions to create your own commands Make it easy for any enterprise to adopt Kubernetes. You can deploy and manage cloud-managed Kubernetes clusters running in GKE (GCP), EKS (AWS), AKS (Azure), or just deploy Kubernetes on VMs or bare-metal infrastructure of your choice. Rancher simplifies all operational responsibilities for administrators, including: monitoring the health of the cluster setting up alerts and notifications enabling centralized logging defining and applying global security policies establishing authentication and enforcing our backend policies managing and scaling your infrastructure with Kubernetes Accelerating adoption across the company, rancher encourages rapid adoption by giving users direct access to the Kubernetes API and CLI. Rancher's new intelligent interface simplifies application management; teams can easily deploy and manage workloads, define Secrets and manage private registries, configure persistent volume claims, configure load balancing and service discovery, and manage CI pipelines. 3. Dashboard + Kubectl + Kubeadm
The Kubernetes Dashboard is a web-based interface to deploy containerized applications. It troubleshoots your application and manages the cluster itself as well as resources.
You can use the dashboard to get an overview of the applications running on your cluster, and to create or modify individual Kubernetes resources such as deployment jobs, replica sets, and more.
You can scale deployments, initiate rolling updates, and even restart pods or deploy new applications using the deployment wizard on the dashboard.
Kubectl is a command-line tool used to communicate with the API service and send commands to the master node. It's a covert command for API calls to the Kubernetes cluster API server.
Kubeadm is a tool with built-in commands for starting minimal Kubernetes clusters. It is used to bootstrap the cluster rather than configure machines. Using kubeadm, you can run some basic commands to bootstrap a cluster, create tokens to join a cluster, revert changes made to a Kubernetes cluster, and more.
4. Helm
Helm is the package manager for Kubernetes. It allows developers and operators to package, configure and deploy applications and services on Kubernetes clusters. It provides operators with greater control over Kubernetes clusters that:
Makes application deployment simple, standardized, and reusable
Easily describes complex applications through a helm chart
Increases developer productivity
Reduces deployment complexity
Enhances operational readiness
Accelerate adoption of cloud-native applications
Easily roll back to previous versions
Helm runs an application or service on a Kubernetes cluster using Charts that contain all resource definitions. You can find several Helm charts available for use here.
5. KubeSpray
KubeSpray is a cluster lifecycle manager that helps you deploy production-ready Kubernetes clusters. It uses ansible-playbook to automate Kubernetes cluster configuration.
Some of these features include: High availability
based on Ansible
Cross
-platform
production level
Popular cloud provider integrations even bare metal
Multiple configuration options
Multi-platform CI/CD
Secure by default
By default, Kubespray allows you to connect remotely via the kube-master IP address and port 6443 to the Kubernetes cluster. If you need flexible deployment, Kubespray is best; it offers a lot of custom configuration options.
Also, if you are familiar with Ansible, Kubespray is very easy to use.
6. Kontena Lens
Kontena Lens is a smart dashboard for Kubernetes.
It's the only management system you need to control Kubernetes. It is free for Mac OS, Windows and Linux operating systems. After the Lens application starts, you will see a list of all associated clusters in the interface.
It is the most powerful IDE for those who really need to deal with Kubernetes on a daily basis. You can be sure your cluster is set up and configured correctly, and can use it easier and faster, radically increasing your productivity and speed of business development.
Features of Kontena Lens IDE are:
Can manage multiple clusters at once
Real-time visualization of cluster status
Provides built-in terminal
Installation is very easy as it is a standalone application
Amazing UI and UX
Supports Kubernetes RBAC.
Tested to handle nearly 25K Pods in the cluster
Kubernetes is a complex tool, and Lens IDE can even help beginners get started with Kubernetes easily. It is one of the best tools for managing and visualizing Kubernetes clusters.
7. WKSctl
WKSctl represents Weave Kubernetes system control. It is part of the Weave Kubernetes platform.
WKSctl is a tool for Kubernetes configuration management using GitOps. GitOps is nothing but a set of practices for managing applications and infrastructure in the traditional way using git requests.
Using WKSctl, you can manage Kubernetes clusters through Git commits. You can upgrade the cluster or add/remove nodes from the cluster.
You can run the tool in two modes: standalone and GitOps. In standalone mode, it creates a static cluster. In GitOps mode, it configures the cluster based on the cluster.yml and machines.yml information present on git.
WKSctl Features:
Use git to quickly start a cluster
Easily roll back when a deployment fails
Changes are logged for review and audit
Only an IP address and ssh key are required to create a cluster
Continuously verify and correct the cluster state
Conclusion
So here are the popular Kubernetes management tools/software to easily manage Kubernetes clusters. Pick any of the tools mentioned above and try it out on your Kubernetes cluster!