Kubernetes kick-start

Kubernetes kick-start

2022, Feb 20    

Kubernetes is an open-source platform for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It’s a great tool for managing complex applications and it’s becoming increasingly popular. If you’re new to Kubernetes, here are some steps to get started.

  1. Set up a Kubernetes cluster: You’ll need to set up a Kubernetes cluster before you can start using it. You can use a managed Kubernetes service such as Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) or Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS) to set up a cluster. Alternatively, you can set up a cluster yourself using Kubernetes packages such as Minikube or Kubeadm.

  2. Install the command-line interface (CLI): Once you have your cluster set up, you’ll need to install the Kubernetes CLI (kubectl) to interact with it. The CLI will allow you to deploy and manage applications on your cluster.

  3. Learn Kubernetes concepts: Before you can start using Kubernetes, it’s important to understand the basic concepts. This includes understanding what a Pod is, how services work, and how to deploy applications using Deployments.

  4. Deploy an application: Once you’re familiar with the basics, you can start deploying your own applications on the cluster. You can use the kubectl CLI to deploy applications using manifests or you can use a package manager such as Helm to manage your deployments.

  5. Monitor applications: Kubernetes provides a number of ways to monitor applications and ensure they’re running as expected. This includes using the kubectl CLI to view logs, as well as using tools such as Prometheus and Grafana for monitoring and alerting.

Kubernetes is a powerful platform and these are just the first steps to get started. With a bit of practice, you’ll be able to deploy complex applications and manage them effectively.

Main features

  • Containerization: Kubernetes is designed to run containerized applications, which allows for easy packaging and deployment of applications.

  • Scalability: Kubernetes can easily scale up or down the number of replicas of an application, based on demand.

  • High availability: Kubernetes can ensure the availability of applications by automatically restarting failed containers and distributing them across multiple nodes.

  • Load balancing: Kubernetes can automatically distribute incoming traffic across multiple replicas of an application, ensuring that the load is evenly distributed.

  • Self-healing: Kubernetes can detect and replace failed containers, ensuring that applications remain available even if there are failures.

  • Declarative configuration: Kubernetes uses declarative configuration, which means that you specify the desired state of your application, rather than the steps to reach that state.

  • Rollback and rollouts: Kubernetes provides the ability to easily roll back to a previous version of an application if there are issues with a new deployment. It also allows for rolling out updates to applications gradually, which can minimize the impact of updates on users.

  • Service discovery and load balancing: Kubernetes provides built-in service discovery and load balancing for applications, allowing them to easily communicate with each other.

  • Configuration management: Kubernetes provides a central place to store and manage application configurations, making it easier to deploy and manage applications across multiple environments.

  • Extensibility: Kubernetes is highly extensible, with a large ecosystem of third-party tools and integrations available. This makes it easy to add additional functionality to your deployment.

Tutorial

As a software engineer, you may have heard about Kubernetes and its capabilities for managing and deploying applications in a scalable and efficient manner. However, getting started with Kubernetes can be intimidating for those who are new to the technology. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the steps to set up Kubernetes and deploy your first application.

Deploying a Spring Boot application to a Kubernetes cluster on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) involves the following steps:

  1. Create a GCP project: If you don’t already have a GCP project, create one at https://console.cloud.google.com.

  2. Enable the Kubernetes Engine API: Go to the GCP Console (https://console.cloud.google.com) and navigate to the “ APIs & Services” section. Click on “Enable APIs and Services” and search for the “Kubernetes Engine API”. Click on it and then click “Enable”.

  3. Install the Google Cloud SDK: The Google Cloud SDK is a command-line tool that you can use to manage your GCP resources. You can install it by following the instructions at https://cloud.google.com/sdk/install.

  4. Set up the gcloud command-line tool: Once you have installed the Google Cloud SDK, open a terminal and run the following command to set up the gcloud tool:

gcloud init

This will prompt you to select a GCP project, choose the project you created in step 1.

  1. Create a Kubernetes cluster: Run the following command to create a Kubernetes cluster in your GCP project:
gcloud container clusters create [CLUSTER_NAME]

Replace [CLUSTER_NAME] with the name you want to give to your cluster.

  1. Build a Docker image of your Spring Boot application: To deploy your Spring Boot application to Kubernetes, you’ll need to build a Docker image of your application. You can do this by adding a Dockerfile to your project and running the following command:

docker build -t [IMAGE_NAME] .

Replace IMAGE_NAME with the name you want to give to your Docker image.

  1. Push the Docker image to Google Container Registry: Google Container Registry is a private registry for storing Docker images in GCP. To push your Docker image to the registry, run the following command:

gcloud auth configure-docker

This will configure the Docker daemon to authenticate with Google Container Registry. Then, run the following command to push your Docker image to the registry:


docker push [IMAGE_NAME]
  1. Deploy the Docker image to your Kubernetes cluster: To deploy your Docker image to your Kubernetes cluster, you’ll need to create a Deployment resource. You can do this by creating a file called deployment.yaml with the following contents:
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: [ DEPLOYMENT_NAME ]
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: [ DEPLOYMENT_NAME ]
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: [ DEPLOYMENT_NAME ]
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: [ CONTAINER_NAME ]
          image: [ IMAGE_NAME ]
          ports:
            - containerPort: 8080

Replace the following placeholders with your own values:

To create the Deployment, run the following command:


kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml

This will create a Deployment resource in your Kubernetes cluster, which will then create and manage a ReplicaSet and one or more Pods running your Spring Boot application.

  1. Expose the Deployment as a Service: In order to access your Spring Boot application from outside the cluster, you’ll need to create a Service resource. You can do this by creating a file called service.yaml with the following contents:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: [ SERVICE_NAME ]
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  selector:
    app: [ DEPLOYMENT_NAME ]
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 80
      targetPort: 8080

Replace the following placeholders with your own values:

To create the Service, run the following command:

kubectl apply -f service.yaml

This will create a Service resource in your Kubernetes cluster, which will then create and manage a Load Balancer that exposes your Spring Boot application to the internet.

Test the deployment: To test your deployment, you can get the external IP address of the Load Balancer by running the following command:


kubectl get service [SERVICE_NAME]

Replace SERVICE_NAME with the name of the Service you created in step 9. The external IP address will be listed in the “EXTERNAL-IP” column. You can then use this IP address to access your Spring Boot application in a web browser.

That’s it! You should now have your Spring Boot application successfully deployed to a Kubernetes cluster on GCP. If you want to learn more about Kubernetes and GCP, you can check out the documentation at https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/.