Introducing APEX Navigator for Kubernetes: Batch deployment of CSMs
This is part 2 of the three-part blog post series introducing Dell APEX Navigator for Kubernetes. In this post, we will cover batch deployment of CSMs on any number of onboarded Kubernetes clusters.
A major advantage of using APEX Navigator for Kubernetes is the ability to deploy multiple CSMs onto multiple Kubernetes clusters which consume storage from different Dell storage systems (including Dell APEX Block Storage on AWS). Multiple install jobs are simultaneously launched on the clusters to enable parallel installation which saves time and effort for admins managing storage for a growing Kubernetes footprint. Let us see how this can be achieved.
From the Clusters tab click on Manage Clusters and select Install modules:
This launches the Module Installation wizard where you can install specific Dell Container Storage Modules and things like SDC client for PowerFlex storage for an entire set of clusters. This ensures the same storage class and other configuration parameters are used across all the clusters for consistency and standardization. In the first release of APEX Navigator for Kubernetes, only Observability, Authorization, and Application Mobility CSMs are supported. Over time more services will be added.
In the CSM deployment wizard, the first step is to select all the clusters where the CSMs need to be installed.
Then, you can select the storage systems for each of the clusters. In the figure below, the selected clusters are sharing the same storage.
In the next step, the Storage class is set for each cluster pair:
- Select the CSMs to install under Plus and Premium categories.
- Enter storage credentials for the storage platforms.
On the summary page of the wizard, you can review the install configurations and click Install to start the installation process. You can track the multiple parallel install jobs on multiple clusters:
Authors:
Parasar Kodati, Engineering Technologist, Dell ISG
Florian Coulombel, Engineering Technologist, Dell ISG