Deploying Kubernetes on AWS Using Terraform

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hello and welcome everyone. My name is Tanaka Mapondera and I’ll be giving a webinar on how to dpeloy kubernestes on AWS using terraform, or at least that was the plan.My AWS account started acting weird this afternoon and now I can’t create anymore worker groups which are needed for the terraform kit I was going to use. However, I’m still able to walk you through 90% of an alternative method of deploying Kubernetes and hopefully by my next webinar everything will be working. Without further adieu, let’s get into the webinar.
• #5: What is Kubernetes? Kubernetes is an open source container orchestration platform that automates many of the manual processes involved in deploying, managing, and scaling containerized applications. It was originally developed and designed by engineers at Google but it is now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, a linux organization created to advance container technology. Kubernetes gives you the ability to cluster together groups of hosts running Linux containers, and helps you easily and efficiently manage those clusters. Kubernetes clusters can span hosts across on-premise, public, private, or hybrid clouds. For this reason, Kubernetes is an ideal platform for hosting cloud-native applications that require rapid scaling; like real-time data streaming through Apache Kafka. Containers support VM-like separation but with far less overhead and far greater flexibility. As a result, containers have reshaped the way people think about developing, deploying, and maintaining software. In a containerized architecture, the different services that constitute an application are packaged into separate containers and deployed across a cluster of physical or virtual machines. But this gives rise to the need for container orchestration—a tool that automates the deployment, management, scaling, networking, and availability of container-based applications.
• #6: Why use Kubernetes I have mentioned“containers” and “container orchestration” so some of you maybe wondering how Kubernetes differs from other container technologies such as Docker, Docker Swarm and Mesos. In regards to Docker, Kubernetes actually makes docker better by allowing you to automate container provisioning, networking, load-balancing, security and scaling across all these nodes from a single command line or dashboard. But Kubernetes does replace Docker Swarm, an orchestrator formally bundled with Docker. It’s still possible to use Docker Swarm instead of Kubernetes, but Docker has chosen to make Kubernetes part of the Docker Community and Docker Enterprise editions going forward.Realistically speaking, Kubernetes is significantly more complex than Docker Swarm, and requires more work to deploy. But, the work is intended to provide a big payoff in the long run by ensuring a more manageable, resilient application infrastructure. However, for smaller projects, Docker Swarm is the smarter choice. As for Mesos, that technology does in fact offer container orchestration services, but it takes it to a whole new level. Mesos is a cloud operating system that can coordinate both containerized and non-containerized components. To that end, a lot of different platforms can run within Mesos—including Kubernetes itself.
• #7: So what can Kubernetes do? Containers are a good way to bundle and run your applications. In a production environment, you need to manage the containers that run the applications and ensure that there is no downtime. For example, if a container goes down, another container needs to start. Wouldn't it be easier if this behavior was handled autonomously? This is where Kubernetes found its setting. It takes care of scaling and failover for your application, provides deployment patterns, and more. Its main features include: Service discovery and load balancing Kubernetes can expose a container using the DNS name or using their own IP address. If traffic to a container is high, Kubernetes is able to load balance and distribute the network traffic so that the deployment is stable. Storage orchestration Kubernetes allows you to automatically mount a storage system of your choice, such as local storages, public cloud providers, and more. Automated rollouts and rollbacks You can describe the desired state for your deployed containers using Kubernetes, and it can change the actual state to the desired state at a controlled rate. For example, you can automate Kubernetes to create new containers for your deployment, remove existing containers and adopt all their resources to the new container. Automatic bin packing You provide Kubernetes with a cluster of nodes that it can use to run containerized tasks. You tell Kubernetes how much CPU and memory each container needs. Kubernetes can fit containers onto your nodes to make the best use of your resources. Self-healing Kubernetes restarts containers that fail, replaces containers, kills containers that don’t respond to your user-defined health check, and doesn’t advertise them to clients until they are ready to serve. Secret and configuration management Kubernetes lets you store and manage sensitive information, such as passwords, OAuth tokens, and SSH keys. You can deploy and update secrets and application configuration without rebuilding your container images, and without exposing secrets in your stack configuration. Kubernetes however does not: limit the types of applications supported. Kubernetes aims to support an extremely diverse variety of workloads, including stateless, stateful, and data-processing workloads. Does not deploy source code and does not build your application. Does not provide application-level services, such as middleware, data-processing frameworks, databases, caches, nor cluster storage systems as built-in services. Does not dictate logging, monitoring, or alerting solutions. Does not provide nor mandate a configuration language/system. And it does not provide nor adopt any comprehensive machine configuration, maintenance, management, or self-healing systems. It’s important to note that Kubernetes is not a traditional, all-inclusive Platform as a Service system. Since Kubernetes operates at the container level, it provides some features commonly offered by a PaaS, such as deployment, scaling, load balancing, and lets users integrate their logging, monitoring, and alerting solutions. However, Kubernetes is not monolithic, and these default solutions are optional and pluggable. Kubernetes provides the building blocks for building developer platforms, but preserves user choice and flexibility where it is important.
• #8: Just a quick look of some of the companies that use Kubernetes today. DEMO