Kubernetes is a popular container orchestrator. It harnesses many computers together into one large computing resource and establishes a means of addressing that resource through the Kubernetes application programming interface (API). Kubernetes is open source software with origins at Google, developed over the last five years by a large group of collaborators under the auspices of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).

An Operator extends Kubernetes to automate the management of the entire lifecycle of a particular application. Operators serve as a packaging mechanism for distributing applications on Kubernetes, and they monitor, maintain, recover, and upgrade the software they deploy.