ITGSS Certified DevOps Engineer Practice Test

The software responsible for running containers in a Kubernetes environment is the container runtime. Container runtimes are essential as they provide the mechanism to execute containers, allowing them to run isolated from the host operating system. This includes handling tasks such as pulling container images from repositories, managing the lifecycle of containers (which involves creating, starting, stopping, and deleting containers), and providing the interface needed for the Kubernetes orchestrator to interact with the container.

Kubernetes itself utilizes a container runtime to handle the heavy lifting of managing individual container workloads. Examples of popular container runtimes include Docker, containerd, and CRI-O, which all adhere to the expectations set forth by Kubernetes, enabling it to schedule and manage containerized applications efficiently.

In contrast, while container orchestrators focus on managing and scaling applications across a cluster (like Kubernetes itself), and container engines provide API-specific functionality on top of container runtimes (such as Docker), the direct responsibility for running containers lies with the container runtime. Thus, it is the correct response in this context.