Kubernetes vs Jenkins | How are they different?

It is no secret that deployments are the most significant bottleneck that is slowing down ongoing operations, causing delays in revenue generation. It has become of utmost importance that adopting the right tools will enable us to do even more with the technology. DevOps encourages fast-flowing app development and IT teams to move from development to testing and release seamlessly to make this all a smoother operation. With the help of Jenkins, one can deploy it within Kubernetes and scale it up according to the team's specific needs.

Let us now see what are these two actually and how they are different from each other.

What is Kubernetes?

Kubernetes is an open-source technology platform developed by Google Inc. that automates container operations. Kubernetes simplifies manual processes, which involve deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications. With the help of Kubernetes, one can cluster (spanning the public, private, and hybrid cloud) a group of hosts running containers together and helps you manage them. Kubernetes is used to handle a containerized program in any categories of physical, virtual, or cloud environments. It is a very flexible container tool to even provide for the most complex applications. The software runs on clusters of millions of independent servers.

The following are some of the features of Kubernetes.

Service location and load balancing:
Kubernetes can find and allots the containers with IP addresses with a unique DNS name, which the DevOps engineer can use for load balancing.

Planning & Placement:
Placement of the containers in the cluster is a critical attribute that decides based on the types of resources it requires and how long.

Auto Scaling:
Auto-scaling directly depends on CPU utilization. The vertical scaling of programs is automatically triggered using the CLI.

Self Repair:
Self-repair is a unique characteristic of the Kubernetes that will reboot the whole container when it fails to work. If the node stops working, then containers are restored and are reassigned to the other Nodes. You can control the containers yourself if they don't respond during the health checks.

Storage Orchestration:
The storage orchestration is the feature of Kubernetes that allows the client to scale the network storage system and localize it.

Batch execution:
Kubernetes manages both batches as well as CI workloads along with restoring containers that don't operate.

Configuration Management and Secrets:
Classification and configuration are significant for Kubernetes. The information is stored under a module called Secrets in Kubernetes. These Secrets are utilized while configuring the software without having to reestablish the image.

Let us now understand what Jenkins is and what are the features it offers.

What is Jenkins?

Jenkins is a free DevOps automation tool written in Java programming language. It has many plugins that are used for Continuous Integration. Jenkins is used to developing and testing your software projects and applications. This makes Jenkins more straightforward for programmers and coders to merge the project's changes. It also allows the user to continuously deliver your software by integrating with many testing & deployment of technologies.

With Jenkins, companies can stimulate the software development process through automation. Jenkins can enhance the development life-cycle processes of all kinds, including build, document, test, package, stage, deploy, static analysis, and much more.

Features of Jenkins

Easy Installation:
Jenkins is a platform-agnostic, independent Java-based program. It is ready to be deployed within Windows OS, Mac OS, and Unix-like operating systems.

Easy Configuration:
Jenkins has an easy configuration system using its web-based interface, featuring fault checks and an in-built Ask Help feature.

Available Plugins:
There are many plugins available in the Update Center, integrating with every CI/CD toolchain tool.

Extensible:
Jenkins is extendable through the plugin architecture, giving many endless possibilities for what it is capable of.

Easy Distribution:
Jenkins can distribute tasks across several machines for faster development, testing, and support across many platforms.

Free Open Source:
Jenkins is a free and open-source DevOps automation tool that is backed by robust community support.

Conclusion

Jenkins is an extendable open source continuous integration server. It is the leading open-source continuous integration server built on Java technology, offering over 300 plugins to support building and testing virtually any project. On the other hand, Kubernetes manages a Linux container cluster as a single system to accelerate Dev and simplify Ops. Kubernetes is an open-source orchestration system for Docker containers.

Running Jenkins on top of Kubernetes takes away most maintenance work, especially around managing the Jenkins Agents. The Jenkins Kubernetes Plugin is relatively mature, and using it to spin up agents on demand reduces the maintenance costs of the agents themselves to virtually nothing.