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Nine Managed GKE

nine managed Kubernetes is a platform, based on Google's Kubernetes Engine, with a Swiss location and additional services that let you focus on your application development.

Details​

Running containers in production isn't easy, it's not enough just to have a Kubernetes cluster running when you need to ensure reliablity and resilience. Covering this complexity on behalf of the Customer is at the heart of Nine's managed GKE. Nine's Managed GKE offering helps customers focus on their core business value by allowing them to focus on their applications and not on the services around them.

Usage​

Getting started​

You will need both the gcloud SDK and kubectl to start using your kubernetes cluster

GCloud SDK​

Kubectl​

  • After installing and initialising Google's Cloud SDK tools you should install kubectl for direct control of your cluster
  • You can do this directly with the gcloud tool by running the following command
gcloud components install kubectl

Please see the documentation for more information about installing kubectl

Cluster login​

After you have completed the gcloud installation you can use it to login to your Kubernetes cluster. Follow these steps to do so:

# Find your project ID
$ gcloud projects list
PROJECT_ID               NAME                     PROJECT_NUMBER
nine-example-478153      nine-example-478153      667903848739

# Switch to that project
$ gcloud config set project nine-example-478153

# Find your cluster
$ gcloud container clusters list
NAME             LOCATION      MASTER_VERSION  MASTER_IP      MACHINE_TYPE   NODE_VERSION   NUM_NODES  STATUS
example-cluster  europe-west6  1.12.8-gke.10   32.63.127.187  n1-standard-1  1.12.8-gke.10  6          RUNNING

# Login to your cluster
$ gcloud container clusters get-credentials example-cluster --region=europe-west6

# Use kubectl to interact with your cluster
$ kubectl cluster-info
Kubernetes master is running at https://32.63.127.187

Authentication information and secrets​

Information regarding credentials and endpoints for your cluster can be found on runway.

Alternatively the same information can be found in a secure GCP bucket. Your bucket URL has the following format: gs://credentials-<project-number>. You can find your project number on runway or by using the gcloud utility.

# To get your project number
gcloud projects describe $(gcloud config get-value project) --format="value(projectNumber)"

# To see all secrets in your bucket
gsutil ls -r gs://credentials-<project-number>

# To view the contents of a secret
gsutil cat gs://credentials-<project-number>/<service>/info.json

# Full example including parsing json output (requires jq - https://stedolan.github.io/jq/)
gsutil cat gs://credentials-<project-number>/cloudsql/my-cluster-288835/info.json | jq .
{
  "data": {
    "credentials": {
      "address": "10.224.129.7",
      "database_version": "POSTGRES_9_6",
      "password": "1234",
      "username": "admin"
    }
  },
  "meta": {
    "description": "Instance: my-cluster-288835",
    "name": "Cloud SQL PostgreSQL",
    "support_url": "/a/w0dWXF-xIFc"
  }
}

Node Pools​

Your cluster is configured with groups of machines, called node pools. A node pool consists of 1-n machines of the same GCP type. The default node pool that nine creates will split the 3 nodes of your cluster between the 3 availability zones of GCP's swiss infrastructure, to ensure your setup is highly available.

When upgrading or changing your cluster configuration it is possible to request node pools changes in three different ways:

Expand the existing node pool​

It is possible to simply add more machines of the same type to your existing node pool.

Creating a new node pool​

It is possible to create a completely new node pool for your cluster. When requesting this your new node pool will be set up, and then your existing nodes will be drained with the existing deployments moved to the new pool.

Create an additional node pool​

If you require additional compute power, that is not the same machine type as the existing nodes, it is possible to add another node pool to your cluster. When adding an additional node pool it is advised to have a minimum of 3 nodes so that they can be spanned across all possible availability zones.

SLA​

Nine offer two SLA options for your nine Managed GKE cluster, sold as an additional service. You can find more details of the SLA terms and conditions on our website

Further Information​

For further information or sales please contact info@nine.ch For support please contact