# What Is a Kubernetes Cluster?
## Metadata
- Author: [[Amazon Web Services, Inc.]]
- Full Title: What Is a Kubernetes Cluster?
- Category: #articles
- Summary: A Kubernetes cluster is a group of machines that run containerized applications managed by Kubernetes software. It helps deploy, scale, and maintain apps by organizing containers into pods and managing them across nodes. AWS offers services like EC2 and EKS to easily run and manage Kubernetes clusters in the cloud.
- URL: https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/kubernetes-cluster/
## Highlights
- A Kubernetes (K8s) cluster is a group of computing nodes, or worker machines, that run containerized applications. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knxj43jbam9pvwcrq3nqz3zk))
- Developers get the benefits of containerization at scale without the administration overheads. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knxj8ra6w8kqq64h95mm7mew))
- **Pod**
A *pod* is the standard deployable unit under Kubernetes. Pods contain one or more containers and, within the pod, containers share the same system resources such as storage and networking. Each pod gets a unique IP address. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knxj9fgemrazrzqkh24mfxkk))
- **Node**
A *node* is a machine that runs pods. It can be a physical or virtual server, such as an Amazon EC2 instance. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knxjecjrcytxrmpwbhsh9c09))
- A compatible container runtime must be installed on the node to run containers. Kubernetes supports several container runtimes, such as the Kubernetes Container Runtime Interface and container. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knxjw2ppxsnrqzws7ec7qddk))
- For public internet traffic access, a Kubernetes ingress is attached to a service, which then links to a pod or pods. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knxjyn7g8yk7c0nfaw637b2c))
- Because containers do not have persistent storage, applications need to store data that persists. Pods may also require access to shared data. Persistent volumes can be added to a cluster as storage, referenced within the cluster ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knxk27k43gr40fedqasr21ax))