Running SUSE Rancher and RKE2 on Dell EMC VxRail

Introduction

SUSE Rancher and Rancher Kubernetes Engine 2 (RKE2) were deployed on Dell EMC VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) within the Dell Technologies Customer Solution Center. SUSE Rancher allows customers to operate CNCF-Certified Kubernetes clusters from core to cloud to edge.

The Dell Technologies Customer Solutions Center has successfully deployed SUSE Rancher and RKE2 on Dell EMC VxRail, which delivers a personalized engagement experience to showcase the Dell Technologies end-to-end solutions portfolio. These experiences are designed to help customers solve their business challenges and optimize innovation within their organizations. Customers can work with Dell Technologies experts in our dedicated labs, or remotely from any location with the latest Dell technology offerings.

SUSE Rancher overview

Rancher is a complete software stack for teams that are adopting containers. It addresses the operational and security challenges of managing multiple Kubernetes clusters across any infrastructure while providing DevOps teams with integrated tools for running containerized workloads. Rancher is able to:

• Deploy production-grade Kubernetes clusters from data center to cloud to the edge
• Unite clusters with centralized authentication, access control, and observability

1. SUSE Rancher container management platform

The Rancher deployment was completed using the installation instructions documented on the RKE2.io website. The installation instructions detail a quick and easy implementation of the Rancher solution onto vSphere-based infrastructures.

1. Dell EMC VxRail

Running SUSE Rancher on Dell EMC VxRail

VxRail is the only fully integrated, pre-configured, and tested HCI system optimized with VMware vSphere, making it ideal for customers who want to leverage SUSE Rancher through vSphere to create and operate Kubernetes clusters on-premises. 

Running SUSE Rancher on VxRail delivers a seamless and automated operations experience across cloud-native and traditional workloads. The intelligent lifecycle management of VxRail automates non-disruptive upgrades and patches, while keeping the infrastructure in a continuously validated state to ensure workloads are running and clusters are optimized. Together, VxRail and SUSE Rancher make it easy to standardize both IT and developer operations, on-premises and in the public cloud.

SUSE Rancher is built on open-source software, which allows for the deployment of Kubernetes clusters to accelerate digital transformation. SUSE Rancher provides an installable software package for creating and operating on-premises downstream Kubernetes clusters, or any Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)-certified Kubernetes cluster.

SUSE Rancher also helps to simplify the creation and operation of on-premises Kubernetes clusters while automating cluster management so organizations can reduce support costs and avoid the maintenance overhead of integrating redundant open-source and third-party tools. In addition, DevOps teams can leverage the SUSE Rancher console to view all their Kubernetes clusters, including SUSE Rancher clusters, running anywhere.

Note: SUSE Rancher is available for free download from the SUSE Rancher website (see Install SUSE Rancher in the Resource section).

RKE2 overview

RKE2, also known as RKE Government, is a fully conformant certified Kubernetes distribution focused on security and compliance. RKE2 leverages the best components of RKE and K3s distributions to bring government-grade security capabilities to the enterprise and cloud native community.

RKE2 is built to take advantage of changes across the ecosystem. It requires no dependency on the Docker container runtime and supported containers runtime is containered. The distribution supports FIPS 140-2 compliance. 

In SUSE Rancher, RKE2 provisioning is being introduced as a technical preview. This new provisioning system is built on top of the community standard Cluster API specifications. Users will now be able to leverage GitOps tools to define their clusters as infrastructure as code out of the box, called fleet. 

Additionally, deploying through SUSE Rancher provides support for a choice of container networking interface (CNI) plugins, SUSE Rancher provides the following CNI network providers for Kubernetes clusters:

• Canal
• Flannel
• Calico
• Weave

Canal is the default CNI network provider combined with Flannel. Businesses can choose their CNI network provider when creating a new Kubernetes cluster.

1. Example of SUSE Rancher, REK2, and Dell EMC VxRail

Key integration benefits

Rancher unites Kubernetes clusters with centralized authentication and access control, enterprise security, auditing, backups, upgrades, observability, and alerts. Enterprises can deploy and secure clusters consistently in minutes, anywhere, using the Dell Technologies intuitive UI or powerful Command Line Interface (CLI).

When deploying an application that needs to retain data, businesses need to create persistent storage. Persistent storage allows them to store application data external from the pod running the application, a practice that allows them to maintain application data even if the application pod fails.

Enterprise storage capabilities can be extended to SUSE Rancher, RKE2, RKE, and K3S Kubernetes for cloud-native stateful applications with Dell Technologies Container Storage Modules (CSM).

SUSE Rancher can be freely downloaded and installed on your VxRail infrastructure, and a SUSE Rancher support subscription can be purchased through Dell Technologies.

References

Dell VxRail Resources

• VxRail Hyperconverged Infrastructure
• VxRail System TechBook
• Running SUSE Rancher and Rancher Kubernetes Engine 2 (RKE2) on VxRail blog

Dell Customer Solution Centers

• Customer Solutions Centers

SUSE Rancher Resources

• SUSE Rancher Documentation
• Rancher Kubernetes Engine 2 (RKE2) Documentation
• SUSE Fleet Container management and deployment engine
• SUSE Rancher GitHub