Kubernetes (short k8s) is an open-source orchestration software for deploying, managing and scaling containers. When applications (microservices) are packaged with their dependencies and configuration into a container it´s necessary a tool to manage and automatically scale up and down the containers according to the application access demand. Kubernetes is the right tool
As applications grow and it is deployed on multiples servers Kubernetes can control how and where those containers will run. It can easily scale horizontally your application while monitor and maintain the container health.
Use Kubernetes also brings you portability, you can deploy containerized applications from local development, QA, or stage machines to production and ensure the same version tested is running. The tool also have a wide collections of extensions and plugins that brings even more power.
Visit the Standardized Glossary to know a comprehensive list of Kubernetes terminology.