Chapter 1981w
From Running Containers to Maintaining a Service
Connect Docker experience to Kubernetes responsibilities and distinguish desired state from observed state.
AIDevOps Cloud Native Series · Book 04
Kubernetes: Understanding & Practice by John Bae
From Core Concepts to Deployment and Operations — 2026 English Edition
Contents 5 sections
Overview
About this book
Move from a first Kubernetes deployment to a system you can operate and explain. Twenty chapters follow Mini CloudShop through Pods, Deployments, Services, Traefik Ingress, configuration, persistent storage, probes, HPA, Jobs, StatefulSets, RBAC, NetworkPolicy, and Gateway API. Recorded lab output, 44 diagrams, a 125-term glossary, four worked cases, and forty additional questions with reasoning connect concepts to observed behavior. Finish by rebuilding the application in a fresh three-node cluster and running recovery drills.
Recorded lab environment
Docker 29.2 · kind 0.33 · Kubernetes v1.37 · Traefik 41.6 · Gateway API 1.5.1
Length
25,431 words (20 chapters + 4 appendices)
Status
Local edition complete — preparing KDP publication
Fictional system — Mini CloudShop
An Nginx Web front end calls an Express API backed by Redis. The same small application makes request paths, workload recovery, storage lifetime, and policy boundaries visible.
About the author — John Bae
Enterprise cloud architect and founder of AIDevOps. His teaching connects application architecture, platform operations, and evidence-based troubleshooting.
Table of Contents
20 chapters
Chapters 1–6 establish the control model and local environment. Chapters 7–14 connect workloads, networking, configuration, storage, health, and scaling. Chapters 15–20 add finite tasks, StatefulSets, policy, Gateway API, diagnosis, and a fresh-cluster recovery lab. Kubernetes Learning Series, Volume 2.
Chapter 2937w
Follow the Control Plane and the Request Path
Trace declarations through the control plane and follow user requests through the application.
Chapter 3874w
Use kubectl with a Known Target
Inspect contexts, namespaces, resources, logs, and Events before changing a cluster.
Chapter 4808w
Build a Three-Node Learning Environment
Create a three-node kind cluster and load locally built application images.
Chapter 5887w
Treat the Pod as an Execution Boundary
Observe Pod lifetime, container sharing, and what happens when an unmanaged Pod disappears.
Chapter 6848w
Read YAML as a Resource Contract
Read API version, kind, metadata, and spec as a resource contract.
Chapter 7728w
Maintain and Update a Deployment
Follow Deployment and ReplicaSet reconciliation, scaling, rolling updates, and rollback.
Chapter 8774w
Connect Objects with Namespaces, Labels, and Selectors
Use namespaces, labels, and selectors deliberately and diagnose mismatched targets.
Chapter 9671w
Build a Stable Service over Changing Pods
Connect stable Service names to changing Pods and inspect EndpointSlices.
Chapter 10712w
Give the Application an HTTP Entry Point
Install Traefik, route Web and API requests, and distinguish rules from the controller.
Chapter 11628w
Deliver Configuration without Rebuilding the Image
Deliver ConfigMap and Secret values and verify when changed configuration reaches a process.
Chapter 12777w
Give Data a Deliberate Lifetime
Compare temporary storage with PVC-backed Redis data and test persistence after replacement.
Chapter 13812w
Define Resource and Health Expectations
Set resource requests and limits; distinguish startup, readiness, and liveness probes.
Chapter 14756w
Scale from Measurements and Recover a Release
Use measured CPU for HPA decisions and recover a failed application release.
Chapter 15695w
Run Work That Should Finish
Run bounded Jobs and CronJobs; inspect completion, retries, and failure limits.
Chapter 16659w
Preserve Identity with a StatefulSet
Preserve StatefulSet identity and storage while understanding independent Redis members.
Chapter 17871w
Put Boundaries around Capacity, Permissions, and Traffic
Verify quotas, default resources, RBAC permissions, and denied versus allowed network clients.
Chapter 18768w
Rebuild the Entry Point with Gateway API
Replace the Ingress entry point with Gateway API and inspect route acceptance.
Chapter 19825w
Diagnose the Failed Responsibility
Diagnose scheduling, image, memory, and process failures with status, logs, and Events.
Chapter 20887w
Rebuild Mini CloudShop and Run Recovery Drills
Rebuild the full application in a fresh cluster and practice data, release, and policy recovery.
Appendix A — Commands Organized by the Question They Answer
A question-first command reference.
Appendix B — Four Worked Operational Cases
Follow evidence through a justified diagnosis and recovery.
Appendix C — Official References and Version Records
Authoritative references for the lab tools and APIs.
Appendix D — Forty Practice Questions with Worked Reasoning
Two additional questions for every chapter.
Companion Materials
Companion manifests & lab files
Every companion/... path referenced throughout the book maps to the same path inside the zip downloadable from this page. The free ZIP contains 34 files: English API/Web sources, locked npm dependencies, a three-node kind configuration, staged manifests, diagnostic examples, and a learning record. Start with README.md and follow the chapter sequence.
Start here
README.md
Archive layout and lab sequence.
Application
api/, web/
API and Web source used to build the lab images.
Chapters 5–20
k8s/
Progressive workload, Service, storage, policy, and Gateway manifests.
Publication Status
Publication status
The English EPUB, 196-page Reading PDF, and 200-page print interior passed local publication checks. EPUBCheck reported zero errors or warnings, and all 20 live checks passed. Kindle/KDP account-side preview and publication remain pending. The free companion is available here.
Done
- 20 chapters complete
- EPUB and print files built
- EPUBCheck: zero errors and warnings
- 20 live validation checks passed
- Free companion materials
Remaining
- Kindle/KDP final preview
- KDP publication
AIDevOps Cloud Native Series
Next in the series
Learning Volume 1 introduces Docker and a first Kubernetes application; this is Volume 2. Continue to Kubernetes Production Engineering for production architecture and operations. Repository series numbers differ from learning-volume numbers.
AIDevOps Cloud Native Series roadmap
- Book 01 — Kubernetes Production Engineering: Learning Volume 3: production design, reliability, security, observability, and delivery