https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/what-is-kubernetes/
Why do I need Kubernetes and what can it do?
At a minimum, Kubernetes can schedule and run application containers on clusters of physical or virtual machines. However, Kubernetes also allows developers to ‘cut the cord’ to physical and virtual machines, moving from a host-centric infrastructure to a container-centric infrastructure, which provides the full advantages and benefits inherent to containers. Kubernetes provides the infrastructure to build a truly container-centric development environment.
Kubernetes satisfies a number of common needs of applications running in production, such as:
- Co-locating helper processes, facilitating composite applications and preserving the one-application-per-container model
- Mounting storage systems
- Distributing secrets
- Checking application health
- Replicating application instances
- Using Horizontal Pod Autoscaling
- Naming and discovering
- Balancing loads
- Rolling updates
- Monitoring resources
- Accessing and ingesting logs
- Debugging applications
- Providing authentication and authorization
This provides the simplicity of Platform as a Service (PaaS) with the flexibility of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and facilitates portability across infrastructure providers.