Kubernetes: What’s in a Name?

Kubernetes is an open source, container system that can be used across a variety of platforms and OS systems. Most users won’t even notice Kubernetes in operation because they will be focused on searching for information, recording their information, or having fun with a game. Kubernetes came along around 2014, and now supports many of the functions we take for granted as users.

Naming Kubernetes

Kubernetes is a play on κυβερνήτης, a Greek word which – when pasted into Google Translate—is translated as “governor.” It can also be translated as helmsman or guide. Since what Kubernetes does is guide the unpracticed user to the information and programs he or she needs, and helps track uncharted waters of the World Wide Web, that’s an apt bit of nomenclature.

The naming doesn’t end there, however. If you are familiar with Star Trek, you will remember a race of beings who had incorporated machine and computer parts into their being, and whose mission in life was to “assimilate” all intelligent life. Their spaceship was a cube-like structure that looked very much like an assemblage of circuit boards. Google techs nicknamed the central operating system for Google “Borg” after the Star Trek beings. It didn’t take too much imagination to have a little fun and use “Kube” for the new spinoff function.

Use a little wild associative thinking and you could almost come up with a match between Borg, Kube and blockchain – but a tiny bit of research reveals a rivalry between the two systems. Still, there’s sufficient similarity in the nomenclature for consideration.

Kubernetes Parts

Continuing the name fun, Kubernetes can govern the different systems that you need by placing the software required into different “containers.” It uses a system that involves nodes, clusters, pods, and containers, as well as Kubes and Kubelets. This would be enough to give the average user a headache, except that users mostly don’t see any of it.

Your Kubernetes Consultant

A good Kubernetes consulting team can set up your computer system so that you can quickly and easily access your data and your computer functions without the background programming intruding itself on your daily life. Will Shakespeare wrote, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” The sweetness in the Kubernetes system is the unobtrusive convenience that makes your life easier by using a well-designed, open-source container system.