container.training/slides/k8s/setup-selfhosted.md

Kubernetes distributions and installers

• There are countless distributions available

• We can't review them all

• We're just going to explore a few options

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kops

• Deploys Kubernetes using cloud infrastructure

  (supports AWS, GCE, Digital Ocean ...)

• Leverages special cloud features when possible

  (e.g. Auto Scaling Groups ...)

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kubeadm

• Provisions Kubernetes nodes on top of existing machines

• kubeadm init to provision a single-node control plane

• kubeadm join to join a node to the cluster

• Supports HA control plane with some extra steps

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Kubespray

• Based on Ansible

• Works on bare metal and cloud infrastructure

  (good for hybrid deployments)

• The expert says: ultra flexible; slow; complex

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RKE (Rancher Kubernetes Engine)

• Opinionated installer with low requirements

• Requires a set of machines with Docker + SSH access

• Supports highly available etcd and control plane

• The expert says: fast; maintenance can be tricky

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Terraform + kubeadm

• Sometimes it is necessary to build a custom solution

• Example use case:

  • deploying Kubernetes on OpenStack

  • ... with highly available control plane

  • ... and Cloud Controller Manager integration

• Solution: Terraform + kubeadm (kubeadm driven by remote-exec)

  • GitHub repository

  • Blog post (in French)

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And many more ...

• Docker Enterprise Edition

• Pivotal Container Service (PKS)

• Tectonic by CoreOS

• etc.

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Bottom line

• Each distribution / installer has pros and cons

• Before picking one, we should sort out our priorities:

  • cloud, on-premises, hybrid?

  • integration with existing network/storage architecture or equipment?

  • are we storing very sensitive data, like finance, health, military?

  • how many clusters are we deploying (and maintaining): 2, 10, 50?

  • which team will be responsible for deployment and maintenance?
    (do they need training?)

  • etc.