Modernizing Applications for Kubernetes

Introduction

Modern stateless applications are built and designed to run in software containers like Docker, and be managed by container clusters like Kubernetes. They are developed using Cloud Native and Twelve Factor principles and patterns, to minimize manual intervention and maximize portability and redundancy. Migrating virtual-machine or bare metal-based applications into containers (known as “containerizing”) and deploying them inside of clusters often involves significant shifts in how these apps are built, packaged, and delivered.

Building on Architecting Applications for Kubernetes, in this conceptual guide, we’ll discuss high-level steps for modernizing your applications, with the end goal of running and managing them in a Kubernetes cluster. Although you can run stateful applications like databases on Kubernetes, this guide focuses on migrating and modernizing stateless applications, with persistent data offloaded to an external data store. Kubernetes provides advanced functionality for efficiently managing and scaling stateless applications, and we’ll explore the application and infrastructure changes necessary for running scalable, observable, and portable apps on Kubernetes.