Kubernetes can be used to deploy an Elasticsearch cluster. Kubernetes runs workloads by placing containers into pods to run on nodes. Pods are the smallest deployable units and can contain one or more containers that share resources. For stateful applications like Elasticsearch, a StatefulSet should be used instead of a Deployment since StatefulSets ensure ordered deployment and termination of pods as well as unique identifiers. PersistentVolumes are used to provide storage for Elasticsearch data and ensure it is not lost on pod restart.