What Is Container Orchestration, Exactly? Everything to Know

Container orchestration platforms automate various concerns around running containers, simplifying dependencies and tasks like networking/DNS configurations, resource allocation, replica management, and workload rollout processes. Kubernetes is the most widely adopted container orchestration platform in the cloud-native world, but others include Apache Mesos and docker-compose. These platforms help manage the lifecycle of containers and ensure repetitive tasks are handled intelligently by the system. Container orchestration becomes more valuable as teams adopt a microservices architecture approach to building their application platforms. Key takeaways include automation's role in deploying and compiling applications, the adoption of Kubernetes as the most widely used container orchestration platform, and the benefits of using managed vs. self-built (homegrown) container orchestration platforms.