[contingencies]

TLDR; Kubernetes is basically like a local copy of a specific-configuration cloud provider that uses docker. It's also Google Cloud Platform's basis, so developing against it lets you deploy your code there. As far as software goes, it's very immature/early days. Some of the pertinent architectural limitations that Kubernetes appears to have are: limited range of target OS platforms for services to target, non-standard mechanism of service relationship abstraction (read: lock-in warning), immature security model, limited support for complex network topologies (eg. hardware switch management), fixed approach to cluster scheduling/consensus.

PS. Corrections welcome, I'm just trying to help people get a grasp without bothering with the background reading.