Navigating the Container Landscape in K8s
Beyond Docker: Exploring Kubernetes’ Diverse Container Runtimes
How Kubernetes Adapts and Thrives with Multiple Container Technologies
Kubernetes, abbreviated as K8s, supports several container runtimes. These runtimes are responsible for running containers and managing their lifecycle on the Kubernetes nodes.
The commonly used container runtimes available for Kubernetes are the following:
1.Docker: Kubernetes has moved away from relying on the Docker daemon directly due to its shift to using the Container Runtime Interface (CRI) for better runtime abstraction. But Docker-created images remain fully compatible with Kubernetes.
Docker is not just a container runtime but a platform that includes a runtime component, a daemon, image distribution, and a build system. Docker's container runtime, which is responsible for running containers, is part of a larger suite of tools.
In Kubernetes environments using Docker (prior to the shift away from direct Docker support), the kubelet (a Kubernetes agent running on nodes) would communicate with the Docker daemon through a Docker-specific interface. This Docker daemon then handled the container lifecycle operations.
