Keeping track of what’s going on in Kubernetes isn’t easy. It’s an environment where things move quickly, individual containers come and go, and a large number of independent processes involving separate users may all be happening at the same time. Container-based systems are by their nature optimized for rapid, efficient response to a heavy load of requests from multiple users in a highly abstracted environment and not for high-visibility, real-time monitoring.

Kubernetes is a container orchestration tool, but its functionality extends far beyond just orchestrating containers in a narrow sense. It offers a range of additional features that—to a limited extent—address needs such as load balancing, access control, security policy enforcement, and even logging and monitoring. Indeed, Kubernetes’s broad functionality has led some folks to call it an “operating system” in its own right.