A deep dive into the Control Plane and Worker Node components you absolutely must know!
Before you can troubleshoot a broken cluster or deploy a complex application, you must understand the machinery you’re working with. A deep knowledge of the Kubernetes architecture isn’t just theoretical — it’s the key to diagnosing issues quickly and efficiently under pressure!
At its core, a Kubernetes cluster follows a simple master-worker (or more accurately, control plane-node) model.
The Control Plane: This is the brain of the operation. It makes all the global decisions about the cluster (like scheduling) and detects and responds to cluster events. Its components can run on a single master node or be replicated across multiple masters for high availability.
The Worker Nodes: These are the machines (VMs or physical servers) that do the actual work. They run your applications inside containers and report back to the control plane.
Let’s break down the individual components of each.
The Control Plane: The Brains of the Operation
The control plane is responsible for maintaining the desired state of the cluster. When you interact with your cluster using kubectl, you're talking to the control plane. It…
