How to Deploy Nutanix Cloud-native Karbon Cluster

Today, I will share the Nutanix cloud native Karbon Kubernetes cluster configuration steps to step — how to deploy, enable, create, Karbon Kuberbnetes cluster with prerequisites, proxy, network ports of Nutanix Karbon Kubernetes cluster.

To deploy / install the Nutanix Karbon cluster is very easy just few click task made by Nutanix

Nutanix Karbon service made, this Kubernetes complex installation more easier to deploy by Nutanix Karbon service.

Nutanix Karbon is the Kubernetes integrated service to help deploying production grade Kubernetes clusters in your on prem data center with quickly provision, manage, and operate your Kubernetes clusters all with the Nutanix Prism.

Read more : What is Nutanix Karbon Kubernetes service ?

Nutanix Karbon vs Kubernetes version Compatibility

Nutanix Karbon version 1.0 is compatible with Kubernetes version v1.11, v1.12 and v1.13.

Nutanix Karbon Prerequisites

To deploying / enabling Nutanix Karbon cluster need to meet prerequisites to proceed to create Nutanix Karbon Kubernetes cluster on Nutanix HCI platform

Nutanix Karbon cluster Prerequisites are :

• Need Prism Central – PC version 5.10.1 or later
• Need Nutanix Prism Element (PE) 5.6.2.x or later
• Must perform a Life Cycle Management (LCM) inventory of PC to deploy Nutanix Karbon
• Nutanix Karbon support Guest OS images – Centos 7.x and Ubuntu 16.4 or later images that will be provided by the Nutainx only on under Karbon service

• Karbon does not support Multi-node PC.
• Karbon supports on Nutanix Native Hypervisor AHV any latest compatible version with AOS and Prism Central – PC
• Nutanix Prism Central – PC must have minimum 120 MB of memory and 700 MB of disk space.

• Nutanix Prism Element – PE cluster must be registered with Prism Central – PC
• Configure the cluster virtual IP address and the iSCSI data services IP address on the designated PE cluster.
• Date, Time and Time zone should be match between PE and PC

• NTP and DNS must be configured in PE and PC
• Must configure the Nutanix AHV native feature IPAM ( IP Address Management ) for dynamic IP address Pool
• Ensure that the PE cluster license includes support for Nutanix Volumes

Nutanix Karbon Network Port Requirements

Nutanix Karbon cluster required networking port must be open for communication among Nutanix cluster components , services, Nutanix PC and Karbon service.

Proxy Requirements

If you use an unauthenticated proxy in Prism Element, allow access for the following domains and subdomains:

Note : Also, exclude the following domains and their subdomains from the security-sockets layer (SSL) inspection in the firewall.

• cloudflare.docker.com
• cloudfront.net
• docker.elastic.co
• docker.io
• gcr.io
• hub.docker.com
• k8s.gcr.io
• ntnx-portal.s3.amazonaws.com
• quay.io
• portal.nutanix.com
• release-api.nutanix.com
• storage.googleapis.com

Download Guest OS Images

Guest OS Images must be provided by Nutanix itself to deploy the Nutanix Karbon Kubernetes cluster.

Nutanix Karbon support Guest OS images – Centos 7.x and Ubuntu 16.4 or later images that will be provided by the Nutainx only on under Karbon service.

you can also download the guest OS image from Nutanix portal directly :

http://download.nutanix.com/karbon/0.8/acs-centos7.qcow2 as “acs-centos”

http://download.nutanix.com/karbon/0.8/acs-ubuntu1604.qcow2 as “acs-ubuntu”

Download online in-place Guest OS image under Nutanix Karbon service

Follow the steps to download the guest OS images under Nutanix Karbon cluster service :

Step 1 : Log in to Nutanix Prism Central – PC

Step 2 : Go to Service Menu >> Karbon

Step 3 : In Karbon, click the OS Images tab in the menu pane

Step 4 : Click Download to start the download process

Deploy Nutanix Karbon Cluster

To deploy / install Nutanix Karbon Kubernetes cluster is made simple by Nutanix single core service run top of the Kubernetes is called Nutanix Karbon service.

The entire Kubernetes solution can be deployed from single Nutanix Karbon serivce to create Nutanix Karbon Kubernetes cluster.

Lets proceed to create Nutanix Karbon cluster using Kubernetes containerized automation platform.

Watch step to step Kubernetes Cluster Deployment with Nutanix Karbon

Administration of Kubernetes Persistent Storage

Kubernetes cluster need storage class to store the persistent data using plug-in Storage Controller Interface ( SCI ) to manage the storage.

Nutanix Karbon made this Kubernetes persistent storage management and administration very simple.

Watch the video to manage the Kubernetes persistent storage

Kubernetes Cluster Scaling Administration

Kubernetes cluster scaling up and down is very simple with Nutanix Karbon, in case of scaling the Kubernetes master node(s) and worker node(s) in the cluster just one click away.

Watch video to manage the Kubernetes cluster scaling

Kubernetes Software Upgrade

Kubernetes software upgrade is one-click job with no downtime required to perform any upgrade of Kubernetes, Karbon and Host OS.

Watch the video to upgrade the Kubernetes cluster software

Accessing Locked Nodes

Karbon protects all nodes in a cluster. You can access nodes in a Kubernetes cluster using an ephemeral certificate, which expires after 24-hours.

Perform the following steps to get a certificate.

Step 1 :In the Clusters view, select the target cluster.

Step 2 : Click the SSH Access button.

Step 3 : In the Node SSH Access window, click Download to download and save the SSH access script to your client.

Step 4 : Run the following command

sh <cluster_name>-ssh-access.sh

Step 5 : When prompted, enter the IP of any node in the cluster to get access to all nodes. Karbon grants the user a private key.

Step 6 : Log on to the target node as a Nutanix user using the command line.

Kubernetes Commands Reference

To deeply manage the Kubernetes cluster needs commands. I have metioned Kubernetes official command line document links below :

1. Overview of kubectl
2. kubectl Cheat Sheet
3. Kubectl Command line Reference Docs – Kubernetes

Conclusion

Nutanix Karbon service is made to create the Kubernetes cluster is very simple and one-click task as you can perform any task in Prism with one-click. Nutanix Karbon deployment is very easy to using Prism central and guest OS images are also avaialalble to download under karbon service.

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