When folks think of "stateful" workloads, they usually think of databases. But stateful workloads are actually much more than that, at least from Kubernetes' perspective. Simply put, a workload is "stateful" if there is something else that cares about its state, meaning that "Stateful" workloads are about dependencies. Kubernetes' role is to make sure those dependencies between different parts of your system are managed appropriately.
The Stateful Set object in Kubernetes addresses some of the challenges of giving a workload a sticky identity, so the other components that depend on it can find it. That sticky identity is one challenge common to stateful workloads, but the other, harder, challenge is managing disruption. In this talk, you will learn how to identify a workload as "stateful," and about the tools Kubernetes provides to manage stateful workloads' unique challenges.