In this chapter, we will discuss the provisioning tools available to deploy cloud-native applications on Kubernetes. You will learn how to deploy DevOps tools and CI/CD (short for continuous integration/continuous delivery or continuous deployment) infrastructure on Kubernetes using the most popular life cycle management options. You will gain the skills to perform Day 1 and some Day 2 operations, such as installing, upgrading, and version controlling Deployments, ruling out a new application, and removing Deployments when they are no longer needed.
In this chapter, we will be covering the following topics:
- Deploying workloads using YAML files
- Deploying workloads using Customize
- Deploying workloads using Helm charts
- Deploying and operating applications using Kubernetes operators
- Deploying and managing the life cycle of Jenkins X
- Deploying...
Technical requirements
Recipes in this section assume that you have a functional Kubernetes cluster deployed following one of the recommended methods described in Chapter 1, Building Production-Ready Kubernetes Clusters.
The Kubernetes Operations tool kubectl will be used for the rest of the recipes in this section since it's the main command-line interface for running commands against Kubernetes clusters. If you are using a Red Hat OpenShift cluster, you can replace kubectl with oc and all commands are expected to function similarly.
Deploying workloads using YAML files
In this section, we will create the resource configurations required to deploy your applications in Kubernetes. You will learn how to create a Kubernetes manifest, deploy a workload, and roll out a new version using Yet Another Markup Language (YAML) files.
Getting ready
Before you start, clone the repository of the examples used in this chapter:
$ git clone https://github.com/k8sdevopscookbook/src.git
Make sure you have a Kubernetes cluster ready and kubectl configured to manage the cluster resources.
How to do it…
This section is further divided into the following subsections to ease the process:
- Creating a Deployment
- Verifying a Deployment
- Editing a Deployment
- Rolling back a Deployment
- Deleting a Deployment
Creating a Deployment
This recipe will take you through instructions to create a Deployment using a manifest file that keeps a set of pods running. Deployments are used to declare how many replicas of a pod should be running. A Deployment...
Deploying workloads using Kustomize
In this section, we will show you how to generate resources from files and compose and customize collections of resources in Kubernetes. You will learn about the declarative management of Kubernetes objects using Kustomize.
Getting ready
Make sure you have a Kubernetes cluster ready and kubectl configured to manage the cluster resources.
The source files created in this section can be found on my GitHub repository located at https://github.com/k8sdevopscookbook/src/tree/master/chapter2/kustomize. It is recommended that you follow the instructions to create and edit them and only use the files in the repository to compare with your files if you run into an issue.
How to do it…
This section is further divided into the following subsections to ease the process:
- Validating the Kubernetes cluster version
- Generating Kubernetes resources from files
- Creating a base for a development and production Deployment
Validating the Kubernetes cluster version...
Deploying workloads using Helm charts
In this section, we will show you how to use Helm charts in Kubernetes. Helm is the package manager for Kubernetes, which helps developers and SREs to easily package, configure, and deploy applications.
You will learn how to install Helm on your cluster and use Helm to manage the life cycle of third-party applications.
Getting ready
Make sure you have a Kubernetes cluster ready and kubectl configured to manage the cluster resources.
How to do it…
This section is further divided into the following subsections to ease the process:
- Installing Helm 2.x
- Installing an application using Helm charts
- Searching for an application in Helm repositories
- Updating an application using Helm
- Rolling back an application using Helm
- Adding new Helm repositories
- Deleting an application using Helm
- Building a Helm chart
Installing Helm 2.x
Let's perform the following steps to configure the prerequisites and install Helm:
- Create a ServiceAccount by using...
Deploying and operating applications using Kubernetes operators
Kubernetes operators are another method of bundling, deploying, and managing application for Kubernetes. Operators are a bit more complex than a package manager like Helm. An operator helps to remove manual steps, application-specific preparation, and post-deployment steps, and even automates second-day operations such as scaling or upgrading them for the user.
As an example, an application's requirements might be validated differently based on the platform on which it is installed or may require changes to its configuration and interaction with external systems.
In this section, we will deploy two operators for popular stateful applications based on two different operator frameworks and learn what functionalities they offer.
Getting ready
Make sure you have a Kubernetes cluster ready and kubectl configured to manage the cluster resources.
How to do it…
This section is further divided into the following subsections...
Deploying and managing the life cycle of Jenkins X
Jenkins X is an open source solution that offers software developers pipeline automation, built-in GitOps, CI, automated testing, and CD, known as CI/CD, in Kubernetes. Jenkins X is highly focused on accelerating software delivery at a large scale using the Kubernetes ecosystem.
In this section, we will focus on Jenkins X recipes and create a Kubernetes cluster with CI/CD capabilities on your cloud provider.
Getting ready
In the following recipes, you will learn how to create a static Jenkins Server to deploy Kubernetes clusters with pipeline automation and automated CI/CD with GitOps promotion and preview environments.
This recipe requires kubectl and Helm. For this recipe, we will use GKE (short for Google Kubernetes Engine), therefore the gcloud CLI tool needs to be installed as well. You also need to have a proper GitHub organization and GitHub account created.
How to do it...
This section is further divided into the following...
Deploying and managing the life cycle of GitLab
GitLab is a complete DevOps tool chain, delivered in a single application platform. GitLab provides all the necessary tooling you need to manage, plan, create, verify, package, release, configure, monitor, and secure your applications.
In this section, we will cover the deployment and life cycle management of GitLab using Helm charts.
Getting ready
In the following recipe, you will learn how to install GitLab on an existing Kubernetes cluster where you can manage the entire DevOps life cycle.
This recipe requires kubectl and Helm, as well as an existing Kubernetes cluster. For this recipe, we will use the cluster we deployed on AWS in Chapter 1, Building Production-Ready Kubernetes Clusters. You should be able to run the same recipe on any Kubernetes cluster version 1.11 or higher with a minimum of 6vCPU and 16 GB of RAM.
How to do it...
This section is further divided into the following subsections to ease the process:
- Installing GitLab...