> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.karchunt.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What is Kubernetes? ## Kubernetes Introduction **Kubernetes** (also known as **k8s**) is an open-source platform for **automating** the **deployment**, **scaling**, and **management of containerized applications**. ## Why you should use Kubernetes? For more information, please refer to the official Kubernetes documentation:\ [Why you need Kubernetes and what can it do](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/#why-you-need-kubernetes-and-what-can-it-do). We know that **containers** are a great way to package and deploy applications, but in a real-world production scenario, you will need to **ensure** that your application is **highly available**, **scalable**, and **can recover from failures**. This is where **Kubernetes** comes in. Here are some of the key features of using Kubernetes: * **Automated deployment & scaling**: Easily deploy and **scale** applications based **on demand**. * **Automated rollouts & rollbacks**: **Gradually roll out changes to your application** or its configuration, while monitoring application health to ensure it doesn't kill all your instances at the same time. If something goes wrong, Kubernetes will **rollback** the change for you. * **Service Discovery & Load Balancing**: It exposes a container using a **DNS name** or its **own IP address** and **distributes network traffic** to ensure stability. If traffic to a container is too high, Kubernetes is able to **load balance** and **distribute the network traffic** to ensure the **deployment is stable**. * **Storage orchestration**: It **automatically mounts a storage system** of your choice such as local storage, public cloud providers, and more. * **Self-healing**: It **automatically restarts failed containers, replaces and reschedules** them when nodes die, and **kills containers** that don't respond to user-defined health checks.