DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling

K2D by Portainer

May 17, 2024

Neil Cresswell and Steven Kang from Portainer discuss K2D, a project merging Kubernetes tooling with Docker to manage containers on edge devices. They delve into the architecture, motivations, and limitations of K2D, highlighting its efficiency and compatibility with small devices like Raspberry Pis. The podcast explores running Kubernetes tools on Docker without a full Kubernetes distribution and the future possibilities of lightweight container configurations.

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INSIGHT

K2D Enables Kubernetes API on Docker

K2D runs a partial Kubernetes API on top of Docker Engine without a full Kubernetes control plane.
It allows Kubernetes tools on tiny devices like old Raspberry Pis with far less resource use than K3S.

INSIGHT

K2D Ultra Light Resource Footprint

K2D requires only about 20 MB RAM when idle, burning almost no CPU without Kubernetes API requests.
This efficiency makes it ideal for devices with as little as 512 MB RAM where K3S needs much more.

INSIGHT

K2D Emulates Single-Node Cluster

K2D emulates a single-node Kubernetes cluster on one Docker host without clustering.
It translates Kubernetes API calls to Docker commands, with no swarm support yet.

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Bret and Nirmal are joined by Neil Cresswell and Steven Kang from Portainer to look at K2D, a new project that enables us to leverage Kubernetes tooling to manage Docker containers on tiny devices at the far edge.

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K2D stands for Kubernetes to Docker, which is a bit of a crazy idea -- it's a partial Kubernetes API running on top of Docker Engine without needing a full Kubernetes control plane. If you work with very small devices, including older Raspberry PIs, 32-bit machines, maybe industry sensors and the infrastructure we now call 'edge', the container hardware is often hard for you to make simple, reliable, and automated all at the same time.

So this project uses less resources than a single node K3S and still allows you to use Kubernetes tools to deploy and manage your containers, which are in fact just running on a Docker Engine with no full-fledged Kubernetes distribution going on there.

We get into far more detail on the architecture, the Portainer team's motivations for this new open source project and what its limitations are, because it's not real Kubernetes, so it can't do everything.

Watch the video version on YouTube for any demos.

This episode is from our YouTube Live show on March 28, 2024 (Stream 260).

★Topics★
K2D website
K2D Docs

Creators & Guests

Cristi Cotovan - Editor
Beth Fisher - Producer
Bret Fisher - Host
Neil Cresswell - Guest
Nirmal Mehta - Host
Steven Kang - Guest

(00:00) - Intro
(02:40) - Introducing the guests
(03:56) - Why K2D? Architecture and Motivations
(05:55) - How Efficient is K2D?
(10:25) - K2D Architecture Explained: Components and Operations
(20:42) - What Happens When Resources are Exhausted?
(23:18) - K2D for Edge Deployment with Portainer or Argo CD
(28:22) - K2D Future Roadmap
(30:36) - Getting Started with K2D

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