New to NKP? Here's Your Ultimate Cheat Sheet to the Nutanix Kubernetes Platform

Welcome to the world of NKP! If you’re just starting your Kubernetes journey with Nutanix, it can feel like drinking from a firehose. But don’t worry—I've got you covered. This blog post breaks down the most important concepts, components, and terms you need to know to become an Nutanix Kubernetes Platform expert. Whether you’re deploying on-premises, in the cloud, or in a locked-down environment, this guide will help you speak NKP like a pro.

Let’s dive in!

🧠 Key NKP Concepts You Need to Know

Term	What It Means
NKP (Nutanix Kubernetes Platform)	Nutanix’s enterprise Kubernetes solution based on pure upstream Kubernetes. Simplifies cluster deployment, scaling, and management across hybrid/multi-cloud environments.
Konvoy	The NKP component that handles Kubernetes cluster lifecycle—provisioning, upgrading, autoscaling, and networking via Cluster API.
Kommander	The fleet management component. Manages multiple clusters, enforces policies, enables GitOps, and gives you centralized visibility and control.
Konvoy Image Builder (KIB)	Tool that creates preconfigured Cluster API-compliant OS images for deploying Kubernetes nodes across different infrastructures.
Infrastructure Providers	Where you can run NKP: Nutanix AHV, AWS (EKS), Azure (AKS), GCP, vSphere, or your own pre-provisioned bare metal. Flexibility at its finest.
Cluster Types	NKP supports various cluster roles: Management (central brain), Managed (NKP-controlled), Attached (externally created).
CAPI (Cluster API)	The automation engine that powers NKP. Manages machines, health checks, node groups, and bootstrapping
Workspace	A logical grouping of clusters, policies, and applications. Great for managing teams, environments, and access control.
Project	Namespace-level abstraction under a Workspace. Helps teams manage apps, RBAC, quotas, secrets, and network policies consistently.
NKP Insights	Centralized monitoring and alerting for all your clusters. Powered by Prometheus, Grafana, and AlertManager.
Catalog Applications	Powerful apps like Kafka, Spark, and Zookeeper that can be deployed at scale across clusters (available in NKP Ultimate).
CNI (Container Network Interface)	Provides pod-to-pod networking. Uses Cilium (Nutanix) or Calico (cloud/other infra).
CSI (Container Storage Interface)	Persistent storage made easy. Connects Kubernetes to Nutanix volumes, AWS EBS, Azure disks, and more.
Platform Applications	Preloaded tools like Prometheus, Grafana, Velero, and Fluent Bit to give your clusters observability, resilience, and manageability.
FluxCD (GitOps)	Git-powered automation for application deployments. Ensures clusters are always in sync with your source of truth.
Helm	The package manager NKP uses to deploy and manage applications quickly and reproducibly.
Fluent Bit	A lightweight log processor and forwarder that collects, transforms, and ships logs from Kubernetes nodes and containers into back-ends like Loki.
Grafana	A dashboard and visualization platform that connects to time-series databases (e.g. Prometheus, InfluxDB, Loki) to create interactive charts, alerts, and reports.
Velero	An open-source backup, restore, and disaster-recovery tool for Kubernetes. Enables scheduled snapshots of cluster resources and persistent volumes, and supports cross-cluster migrations.
Kubecost	An open-source cost monitoring tool for Kubernetes. Provides real-time visibility into cluster spending, cost allocation by namespace, pod, and service, and budget alerts.
Gatekeeper	A policy enforcement layer built on Open Policy Agent (OPA) that lets you define, audit, and enforce fine-grained Kubernetes admission policies via CRDs.
Dex	A pluggable OpenID Connect (OIDC) identity provider for Kubernetes. Integrates with LDAP, SAML, and other identity back-ends to issue JWTs for Kubernetes authentication.
Loki	A horizontally scalable, highly available log aggregation system inspired by Prometheus. Indexes only metadata, so it’s cost-effective for storing and querying large log volumes.
Traefik	A dynamic edge router and Kubernetes Ingress controller. Automatically discovers services, provisions routes and certificates, and supports load-balancing, metrics, and middleware.
Jaeger	An end-to-end distributed tracing system. Collects and visualizes traces across microservices to help you monitor latency, pinpoint bottlenecks, and debug complex request flows.
Istio	A full-featured service mesh that injects a sidecar proxy (Envoy) to manage traffic flow, enforce policies, and collect telemetry for microservices at the network layer.
Kiali	An observability console for Istio service mesh. Provides topology views, metrics, and configuration validation to help you understand and troubleshoot mesh behavior.

🌟 Why This Matters

NKP isn’t just another Kubernetes distribution. It’s a full-stack platform designed for real-world production—from enterprise edge sites to public clouds, from developer agility to operations control. Understanding these core terms is your first step to getting the most out of it.

💥 Ready to Go Pro with NKP?

Start by identifying your infrastructure, spin up a management cluster, and explore the magic of multi-cluster management with Kommander. Whether you're running mission-critical databases, containerized web apps, or GPU-powered AI workloads—NKP has the tooling, flexibility, and support to make Kubernetes enterprise-ready.

🎯 Final Thought

Learning NKP is like unlocking the next level in your Kubernetes game. With this cheat sheet in hand, you're no longer a rookie—you’re ready to deploy, scale, and conquer!

👉 Got questions or want to see a demo in action? Drop a comment or reach out to your Nutanix team today.