Kubernetes: what's the difference between Deployment and Replica set?
Oct 5
Both replica set and deployment have the attribute replica: 3, what's the difference between deployment and replica set? Does deployment work via replica set under the hood?
configuration of deployment
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: my-deployment
labels:
my-label: my-value
spec:
replicas: 3
selector:
matchLabels:
my-label: my-value
template:
metadata:
labels:
my-label: my-value
spec:
containers:
- name: app-container
image: my-image:latest
configuration of replica set
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: ReplicaSet
metadata:
name: my-replicaset
labels:
my-label: my-value
spec:
replicas: 3
selector:
matchLabels:
my-label: my-value
template:
metadata:
labels:
my-label: my-value
spec:
containers:
- name: app-container
image: my-image:latest
When to use a ReplicaSet
A ReplicaSet ensures that a specified number of pod replicas are running at any given time. However, Deployment is a higher-level concept that manages ReplicaSets and provides declarative updates to Pods along with a lot of other useful features. Therefore, we recommend using Deployments instead of directly using ReplicaSets, unless you require custom update orchestration or don't require updates at all.
This actually means that you may never need to manipulate ReplicaSet objects: use a Deployment instead, and define your application in the spec section.
kubernetes1 answer
Accepted answer · original discussion
Oct 5
A ReplicaSet ensures that a number of Pods is created in a cluster. The pods are called replicas and are the mechanism of availability in Kubernetes. But changing the ReplicaSet will not take effect on existing Pods, so it is not possible to easily change, for example, the image version.
A deployment is a higher abstraction that manages one or more ReplicaSets to provide a controlled rollout of a new version. When the image version is changed in the Deployment, a new ReplicaSet for this version will be created with initially zero replicas. Then it will be scaled to one replica, after that is running, the old ReplicaSet will be scaled down. (The number of newly created pods, the step size so to speak, can be tuned.)
As long as you don't have a rollout in progress, a deployment will result in a single replicaset with the replication factor managed by the deployment.
I would recommend to always use a Deployment and not a bare ReplicaSet.
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Oct 6
Oct 6
Deployment concept has been invented earlier than concept ReplicaSet. I am not sure about this assumption.