Service Types: ClusterIP, NodePort, and LoadBalancer

You deploy three replicas of a backend. Each Pod gets an IP. One Pod crashes and gets replaced. The new one has a different IP. Your frontend is now sending requests to an address that no longer exists.

Services solve this. A Service provides a stable virtual IP and DNS name that tracks healthy Pods as they come and go. The Kubernetes Networking Model article covered the flat network and CNI plugins. This article picks up the next layer: once Pods can reach each other, how do you give them stable addresses and expose them beyond the cluster? The three core Service types, ClusterIP, NodePort, and LoadBalancer, are part of the KCNA Container Orchestration domain (22% of the exam).