What steps are necessary to deploy and run a Kubernetes cluster?

The following steps are usually performed for deploying and launching a Kubernetes cluster:

1. Infrastructure preparation: setting up servers or virtual machines for the master and workers.
2. Installing necessary components: Docker (or another container runtime), kubeadm, kubelet, and kubectl.
3. Initializing the cluster on the master using the command kubeadm init.
4. Configuring kubeconfig for managing the cluster via kubectl.
5. Adding workers to the cluster using the command kubeadm join, with the token created on the master.
6. Installing a network plugin (CNI), such as Calico or Flannel, to ensure network communication between pods.
7. Checking the cluster and node status with the command kubectl get nodes.

These steps provide the basic deployment of a Kubernetes cluster ready to run applications.