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Explaining Kubernetes To My Uber Driver

Jessica Wang on November 12, 2023

A week ago, I attended Kubecon 2023 in Chicago. I read a few blogs and attended some 101 tutorials at the conference, but still didn’t have a goo...
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Jessica Wang

To the people reading, I just want to say how clever I felt, when drawing out the title image, that "Kubernetes" already had the word "Uber" in it.

What a funny coincidence :)

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Micky Multani

This was pretty neat actually!

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Nayan Pahuja

Thanks for writing this beautiful article. I had been reading about and working with some practical kubernetes for a while now and this article just humbles me to my core about how simplified yet complete one can write. Great Read

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Prayson Wilfred Daniel

Unique and brilliant explanation of what Kubernetes is. This is how we ought to explain complex ideas in relatable paradigms. 👏

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Bruce MacKenzie

Great concept for an article! I appreciate the humility.

I have a suggestion to enrich the restaurant metaphor. First some nomenclature:

The head chef is the visionary behind the food. The Sous-chef is second in command to the head chef, and manages the kitchen on their behalf.

Kubernetes is Greek for helmsman. In sailing, the helmsman carries out the captains orders in navigating the ship.

In the sailing metaphor, Kubernetes is the helmsman and you are the captain. Extending the same metaphor to the kitchen, Kubernetes would be the Sous-chef and you are the head chef.

The idea here would be Kubernetes handles the gritty details of container orchestration, and provides a higher-level abstraction for you to orchestrate your containers. Put another way, you tell Kubernetes what actions to carry out and it does so, handling the complex details of how.

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Oussama Sh

Nice explanatory post in a funny way thanks!

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Atul S Khot

Awesome write-up 👌👍

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Phil Johnston

This is the best explanation of kubernetes I’ve found. Thank you!

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Michael Tharrington

This is such a creative and awesome post.

Fantastic analogy... and now I'm hungry, haha! 😋

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Dan Bailey

This is fantastic. One of the best articles I've consumed on here.

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Jessica Wang

wow :O

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Khalid ElGazzar

Love the handwritten style drawing :D

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Jessica Wang

Thank you so much! It took a long time for me (struggling with Adobe Photoshop for the first time), so this comment means a lot.

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Zohaib Akhter • Edited

Tutorial completed, and my mind is buzzing with new knowledge! 🚀🧠 It's incredible how learning something new can expand your horizons. Now, it's time to put these skills into action and build something amazing. Thanks to the fantastic creators of this tutorial for lighting the way! 💡✨

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Seif Sekalala • Edited

This is SO funny (and cute—and I mean that respectfully, from the “kid at heart” inside me)! Best of all, it’s actually VERY effective, re: explaining Kubernetes! Good job, author [ @therubberduckiee ]!
😂👍👏

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Anmol Baranwal

Drawings make it an 11/10 read for sure 🔥

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Audrey Kadjar

I've enjoyed reading this fun article about K8! This kitchen analogy works well to give a basic explanation of the main concepts.

Well done @therubberduckiee for this great article and illustrations :)

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Rajdweep1

awesome explanation, loved it, im a noob in devops btw

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Jessica Wang

Same, TBH

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Rajdweep1

nah ur not a noob xd u explained it so nicely.
BTW i checked out your app its pretty cool, i myself am a java backend dev lmk if you need a java dev in your team

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Jessica Wang

Our product is actually built fully in Rust!

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Rajdweep1

ah npp

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Adesoji1

Rust, bestest language ever. tokios everywhere

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Omkar Dave

Thank you for this beautiful and insightful article. I am a beginner right now, learning about Kubernetes and Docker. This article gave me a good idea of how Kubernetes works. The analogy was on point...!!🙌🏻

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John White

SUPER CREATIVE!!! Thank you! 😁

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Kaushik Sarkar

Awersome! Thanks for making it simple.

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Derrick Wong

Thanks Jessica! This is by far the best explanation of K8s.

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denkochev

You have talent, for real!

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Geri Máté

I love this blog post! Congrats and thank you so much!

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Rajiv Lochan Dash

That the title caught my eye, and your writing style awesome! :-)

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Taufiq Abdullah

me and my colleague have a problem to understand about docker and kubernetes, and this article show up, it's fun to read, easy to understand, great !! thanks !!

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Adesoji1

brilliant, Thanks for this

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Jorman Espinoza

Beautiful explanation! Great job!

Thank you

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Filipe Veber • Edited

In my entire life I always faced difficulties when learning new things/concepts/buzzwords in the IT field. Every time, an analogy helped me with my struggles.
Till this day, Kubernetes was like rocket science for me. After reading your article, things are clearer now. Of course, I still have a lot to learn, especially when it comes to practice it. The diagrams and drawings style are super cool. They made the reading easier, lightened and pleasant. I really encourage you to stick with them and with the "Explaining X to my Uber Driver" approach in the next posts!!

I wanna thank you deeply. You have no idea how you made my day!

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Jessica Wang

aw man. THIS made my day. seriously, thank you

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Kirsten Naughton

Great explanation! Thanks for making it relatable.

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Owen Singh

very informative

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Jayesh Jose

Awesome, nicely explained ❤❤

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ishrat

cool👌👍

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Tony Yu

Short 2cents:
Chef = worker node/kubelet
Plate = container
Tray = pod

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Clayton Kehoe

Thanks for sharing!

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Aatmaj

Nice post!
Was fun to read😇

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Horace FAYOMI

Really nice post. Thanks.

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João L.

This is an amazing explanation, but I can't believe your driver actually understood this. People who never programmed don't usually understand how programs work.

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Jessica Wang

To be clear, this is a reimagined conversation of what I would have liked to said to my Uber driver if I could go back in time. Probably would never get the chance to chat with that particular fellow again :-)

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Tijmen de Jong💻

This is a nice way of explaining it!

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Kratarth

Simple, engaging and to the point explanation. Although it's not it but still a wonderful explanation to get started with how Master-Slave cluster in Kubern8s works. Great job!

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Jose Angel Munoz

Really cool post. It could be nice to change Docker by containerd in the last picture as it is the standard for K8S.

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Jessica Wang

Right! Good point. I wanted to do a bit of a deeper dive to understand Docker myself (my background is as a frontend developer, so I'm not currently as familiar with it as I'd like to be) before including it in my article. Maybe good fodder for a future blog.

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venkata narasimha bhaskar divi

you are wonderful tech storyteller 😁. Thank you for sharing.

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Jessica Wang • Edited

Thank you so much :-) !

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Pranav Badami

Really fresh approach to explaining this topic, loved it :)

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Jagath Singh

This was my first day on Dev.to and I landed into this article and the article made me understand how kubernetes actually works. Thanks for sharing this article.

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kingkunte_

You are welcome.

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John P. Rouillard

Great article.

The pods make perfect sense. Under no circumstances should my salad and ice-cream be eaten together.
But soup and salad are a perfect pair 8-).

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Kimani

Good stuff

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Andhana Utama • Edited

Thanks for for share this topic! love it! good for beginner!

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Jessica Wang

That means a lot to me! I really hope this helps people with what I struggled to learn a week ago.

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Fabio Ávila

excellent review!!😎👍

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Shafayet Jamil

Nice explanation. Just amazing! My concept is clear, now time to deep dive into this. Thanks for sharing.

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Adesoji1

you are a champ honestly @therubberduckiee

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Jessica Wang

aww man. Thank you so much <3

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thaddaeustedcode

Intresting post

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Mayur

Awesome. Thanks for explaining in the simple words

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Erica Erica
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Robin Issac

Thanks for Sharing, may I know as a beginner what data does Ens users can consume, any other realtime examples other than Spotify ? Happy to learn and thanks in advance

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Roberto Cunha

This post reminded me of the good old "Head First" series. Nice work.

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Nouh Ahmed

Realy informative and simple explanation. Did get familiar with kubernates before this article.

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Praveen jayakar

Great article

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yankooo

Very nice post! 🚀

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A N M JUBAER

thanks for sharing this concept in simple terms

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Chuck Phelps

This article was very easy to follow and built upon each section of the story telling. I will reference this in the future to better understand Kubernetes. Thanks so much for putting this together!

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Jessica Wang

Thanks Chuck! I'm glad you see this as something you can reference in the future.

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longlch

Amazing explanation, Very useful for me as a beginner. Keep up publishing more articles like this, highly appreciate it, Jessica.

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Jessica Wang

That's the motivation I need!

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Maik Wriede

There should be a regular series generally explaining topics like this in such an accessible manner. Great job and a big thanks! Motivated me to take a deeper dive into Kubernetes.

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Jessica Wang

Like actually. I really enjoyed writing on a complicated topic from the perspective of "what would an Uber driver understand". I'd like to do more around this concept.

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Lev N.

Masterfully crafted title (and illustrations).
I enjoyed the concept, thanks!