Which technology is commonly associated with container orchestration?

Container orchestration is primarily concerned with automating the deployment, management, scaling, and networking of containers. Docker Swarm is a technology specifically designed for orchestrating Docker containers. It enables users to manage a cluster of Docker nodes and applications seamlessly, providing features such as load balancing, service discovery, scaling, and high availability.

Docker Swarm functions by allowing developers to define services and configurations in a simple and effective manner. This aligns perfectly with the needs of modern cloud-native applications that are heavily reliant on containerization for their scalability and flexibility. Additionally, Swarm integrates closely with Docker, making it a natural choice for teams already utilizing the Docker technology stack.

In contrast, the other listed technologies do not focus on container orchestration in the same way. OpenStack is primarily an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform for managing virtualized resources rather than specifically handling containerized applications. Apache Kafka is a distributed event streaming platform, ideal for building real-time data pipelines and streaming applications, but it does not orchestrate containers. Jenkins is a widely used automation server for continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), which can work with containers but is not limited to or specifically focused on container orchestration.

Thus, Docker Swarm stands out as the