
Windows Server Support Comes to Kubernetes - TheIronYuppie
http://blog.kubernetes.io/2016/12/windows-server-support-kubernetes.html
======
philips
Supporting different operating systems shows the flexibility of the Kubernetes
system.

The "core" of Kubernetes is an API server backed by the etcd key-value store
(diagram[1]). Everything is a client of this API server: the scheduler, the
kubectl CLI, and the nodes that run the workloads themselves.

This means the agent that starts and babysits the containers, called the
Kubelet, can be reimplemented for some other operating system, as has been
done here, without a ton of coordination across other components.

Further, because of Kubernetes's labeling system[2] it is easy for a workload
to express constraints like the need to run on machines with certain features
using a nodeSelector[3].

There is a lot to do before getting Windows support fully working but today it
is a great showcase of Kubernetes's flexibility.

[1] [https://speakerdeck.com/philips/tectonic-summit-
day-2-keynot...](https://speakerdeck.com/philips/tectonic-summit-
day-2-keynote?slide=44) [2] [http://kubernetes.io/docs/user-
guide/labels/](http://kubernetes.io/docs/user-guide/labels/) [3]
[http://kubernetes.io/docs/api-
reference/v1/definitions/#_v1_...](http://kubernetes.io/docs/api-
reference/v1/definitions/#_v1_podspec)

~~~
snuxoll
I'm anxious to see if OpenShift ends up supporting Windows Server - we've got
a fair amount of .Net applications that are impossible to port to the CoreCLR
due to various vender supplied libraries and a fairly deep use of Windows
authentication with them (we can abstract the authentication for our
applications to an auth service and use JWT or OpenID connect, but lord knows
how we could get these 3rd party libs to work).

~~~
vittore
I believe windows support is really nano server support which doesn't support
full .net. Please correct me if I am wrong in this.

~~~
snuxoll
Windows containers don't necessarily need to run Nano server, they can run
full Windows Server images just fine.

~~~
michmike
Windows Server Containers can run two installation types of Windows: Nano
Server, and Windows Server Core. any type of application that can run under
those two operating systems is supported in containers.

For example, Windows Server Core supports the full .NET ecosystem.

Michael Michael SIG-Windows Lead for Kubernetes @michmike77

