Book excerpt: While Kubernetes has greatly simplified the task of deploying containerized applications, managing this orchestration framework on a daily basis can still be a complex undertaking. With this practical book, site reliability and DevOps engineers will learn how to build, operate, manage, and upgrade a Kubernetes cluster—whether it resides on cloud infrastructure or on-premises. Brendan Burns, cofounder of Kubernetes, and Craig Tracey, staff field engineer at Heptio, dissect how Kubernetes works internally and demonstrate ways to maintain, adjust, and improve the cluster to suit your particular use case. You’ll learn how to make architectural choices for designing a cluster, managing access control, monitoring and alerting, and upgrading Kubernetes. Dive in and discover how to take full advantage of this orchestration framework’s capabilities. Learn how your cluster operates, how developers use it to deploy applications, and how Kubernetes can facilitate a developer’s job Adjust, secure, and tune your cluster by understanding Kubernetes APIs and configuration options Detect cluster-level problems early and learn the steps necessary to respond and recover quickly Determine how and when to add libraries, tools, and platforms that build on, extend, or otherwise improve a Kubernetes cluster