The Kubernetes control plane manages the cluster.
It stores desired state, exposes the Kubernetes API, schedules workloads, and runs controllers that reconcile the cluster.
Common components
- API server: the front door to the Kubernetes API
- Scheduler: chooses nodes for Pods
- Controller manager: runs built-in controllers
- etcd: stores cluster state
Compare
The control plane makes decisions about the cluster.
Nodes run the workloads.