Kubernetes

Understanding Kubernetes Multi-Container Pod Patterns and Init- Containers

Multi-container pods are extremely useful for specific purposes in Kubernetes. While it’s not always necessary to combine multiple containers into a single pod, knowing the right patterns to adopt creates more robust Kubernetes deployments.

Pods will often only have one container — this is OK. One of the downsides of having a pod as an extra layer of abstraction around a container is that it seems like you should have multiple containers for a pod to be useful.

Another reason to combine containers into a single pod is fro simpler communication between containers in the pod. These containers can communicate through shared volumes (writing to a shared file or directory) and through inter-process communication (semaphores or shared memory).

There are three common design patterns and use-cases for combining multiple containers into a single pod. We’ll walk through the sidecar pattern, the adapter pattern, and the ambassador pattern. Look to the end of the post for example YAML files for each of these.