YugabyteDB is an open-source, high-performance distributed SQL database built on a scalable and fault-tolerant design inspired by Google Spanner. It has complementary design principles with Kubernetes, both relying on an extensible and flexible API layer and a scale-out architecture for performance and availability. To deploy YugabyteDB on Kubernetes, it's recommended to use Helm, which provides a methodical and easily shared method for consistent deployment and release management of applications onto Kubernetes clusters. The default installation assumes a replication factor (RF) of 3, and it's essential to plan accordingly with at least an equal amount of Kubernetes worker nodes to accommodate the RF sizing. YugabyteDB is optimized for SSD-based deployments, and adding a new storage class can allow SSD assignment. Master and Tserver intra-cluster communication is necessary for cluster coherency and availability, which requires careful network design. Dedicated nodes can be used to separate performance and availability profiles, and node scaling can be done natively with the kubectl scale command. Performance monitoring and benchmarking are crucial, and tools like Prometheus and the native YugabyteDB logs provide valuable insights into the instance's performance. Common deployment issues often relate to deviating from design principles, and troubleshooting commands like kubectl describe and kubectl logs can help identify problems.