Running a single container is a solved problem, but managing distributed applications composed of many containers introduces significant operational complexity. A container orchestrator like Kubernetes is designed to address these challenges. This chapter provides the architectural and operational foundation for using Kubernetes, giving you a functional model of how the system is structured and how to interact with it.

You will start by examining the core architectural components of Kubernetes. We will cover:

• The Control Plane: The components that make global decisions about the cluster, like the API Server, scheduler, and etcd.
• The Worker Node: The components that run on every node to maintain running pods, including the Kubelet and container runtime.
• kubectl: The command-line tool used to communicate with the Kubernetes API.
• Declarative Management: The practice of defining desired state in YAML files, compared to running imperative commands.

To put this theory into practice, the chapter guides you through setting up a local Kubernetes cluster. It concludes with a hands-on exercise where you will use kubectl to inspect your cluster's components, solidifying your understanding before moving on to deploying applications.