ITGSS Certified DevOps Engineer Practice Test 2026 - Free DevOps Practice Questions and Exam Preparation Guide

The Master Node in a Kubernetes cluster is essential for orchestration and management of the cluster's components. Its primary function is to maintain control over the cluster, ensuring that the desired state of the system is maintained based on the configurations provided by the user. This includes managing the scheduling of workloads, overseeing the state of the nodes, and communicating with worker nodes to supervise the running applications and their resource allocation.

By taking on this role, the Master Node enables an environment where different workloads can be assigned efficiently to available nodes, which helps to optimize the performance and resource use of the cluster. It serves as the control plane, making decisions about the deployment of applications and monitoring their health, thereby allowing Kubernetes to automate the deployment, scaling, and operations of application containers across clusters of hosts.

In contrast, while other functions like network management, running applications, and providing storage space are vital for the functioning of a Kubernetes cluster, they are not the primary responsibilities of the Master Node. Worker nodes typically carry out the execution of user applications, manage network traffic, and can offer storage solutions, but the overarching control and management provided by the Master Node are what solidifies its primary function in the Kubernetes architecture.