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Kubernetes vs Marathon: What are the differences?
Kubernetes: Manage a cluster of Linux containers as a single system to accelerate Dev and simplify Ops. Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions; Marathon: Deploy and manage containers (including Docker) on top of Apache Mesos at scale. Marathon is an Apache Mesos framework for container orchestration. Marathon provides a REST API for starting, stopping, and scaling applications. Marathon is written in Scala and can run in highly-available mode by running multiple copies. The state of running tasks gets stored in the Mesos state abstraction.
Kubernetes and Marathon can be primarily classified as "Container" tools.
Kubernetes and Marathon are both open source tools. Kubernetes with 55K GitHub stars and 19.1K forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Marathon with 3.87K GitHub stars and 875 GitHub forks.
We develop rapidly with docker-compose orchestrated services, however, for production - we utilise the very best ideas that Kubernetes has to offer: SCALE! We can scale when needed, setting a maximum and minimum level of nodes for each application layer - scaling only when the load balancer needs it. This allowed us to reduce our devops costs by 40% whilst also maintaining an SLA of 99.87%.
Our whole DevOps stack consists of the following tools:
- GitHub (incl. GitHub Pages/Markdown for Documentation, GettingStarted and HowTo's) for collaborative review and code management tool
- Respectively Git as revision control system
- SourceTree as Git GUI
- Visual Studio Code as IDE
- CircleCI for continuous integration (automatize development process)
- Prettier / TSLint / ESLint as code linter
- SonarQube as quality gate
- Docker as container management (incl. Docker Compose for multi-container application management)
- VirtualBox for operating system simulation tests
- Kubernetes as cluster management for docker containers
- Heroku for deploying in test environments
- nginx as web server (preferably used as facade server in production environment)
- SSLMate (using OpenSSL) for certificate management
- Amazon EC2 (incl. Amazon S3) for deploying in stage (production-like) and production environments
- PostgreSQL as preferred database system
- Redis as preferred in-memory database/store (great for caching)
The main reason we have chosen Kubernetes over Docker Swarm is related to the following artifacts:
- Key features: Easy and flexible installation, Clear dashboard, Great scaling operations, Monitoring is an integral part, Great load balancing concepts, Monitors the condition and ensures compensation in the event of failure.
- Applications: An application can be deployed using a combination of pods, deployments, and services (or micro-services).
- Functionality: Kubernetes as a complex installation and setup process, but it not as limited as Docker Swarm.
- Monitoring: It supports multiple versions of logging and monitoring when the services are deployed within the cluster (Elasticsearch/Kibana (ELK), Heapster/Grafana, Sysdig cloud integration).
- Scalability: All-in-one framework for distributed systems.
- Other Benefits: Kubernetes is backed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), huge community among container orchestration tools, it is an open source and modular tool that works with any OS.
Pros of Kubernetes
- Leading docker container management solution151
- Simple and powerful121
- Open source95
- Backed by google70
- The right abstractions55
- Scale services24
- Replication controller16
- Permission managment9
- Simple6
- Supports autoscaling5
- Cheap5
- Promotes modern/good infrascture practice3
- No cloud platform lock-in3
- Self-healing3
- Open, powerful, stable3
- Scalable3
- Reliable3
- A self healing environment with rich metadata2
- Captain of Container Ship2
- Quick cloud setup2
- Custom and extensibility1
- Expandable1
- Easy setup1
- Gke1
- Golang1
- Backed by Red Hat1
- Everything of CaaS1
- Runs on azure1
- Cloud Agnostic1
- Sfg1
Pros of Marathon
- High Availability1
- Powerful UI1
- Service Discovery1
- Load Balancing1
- Health Checks1
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Cons of Kubernetes
- Poor workflow for development13
- Steep learning curve10
- Orchestrates only infrastructure4
- High resource requirements for on-prem clusters2
Cons of Marathon
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