A Java map is a object that maps key to value. The key has to be unique. Environment Variables Environment variables can be directly added into Pod definition file under specs.env array But they will be limited to only the pod for which they are added For new Pods, the environment variables have to be added again ConfigMaps ConfigMaps are a way of storing the data in key: value pair This data is then injected into Pods via the definition file The data injected can be created as environment variables in the pod Or the data is just injected as a file that then can be used by the pod Create ConfigMaps There are two ways to create the ConfigMaps like any other Kubernetes objects Imperative Declarative Note that in the declarative way there is no specs , we instead have data section config-map APP_COLOR: Blue APP_ENV: Prod config-map-creation-imperative kubectl create configmap -> Imperative way of creating configmap <config-name> --from-literal=<key>=<v...