2 Creating Kubernetes Clusters

Overview

In the previous chapter, we learned what Kubernetes is all about, how it is designed, what concepts it supports, its runtime engines, and how it fits within the CI/CD pipeline.

Creating a Kubernetes cluster from scratch is a non-trivial task. There are many options and tools to select from. There are many factors to consider. In this chapter, we will roll our sleeves up and build us some Kubernetes clusters using Minikube, KinD, and K3d. We will discuss and evaluate other tools such as Kubeadm, Kubespray, KRIB, RKE, and bootkube. We will also look into deployment environments such as local, cloud, and bare metal. The topics we will cover are as follows:

• Creating a single-node cluster with Minikube
• Creating a multi-node cluster with KinD
• Creating a multi-node cluster using k3d
• Creating clusters in the cloud
• Creating bare-metal clusters from scratch
• Reviewing other options for creating Kubernetes clusters

At the end of this chapter, you will have a solid understanding of the various options to create Kubernetes clusters and knowledge of the best-of-breed tools to support the creation of Kubernetes clusters. You will have also built several clusters, both single-node and multi-node.