Eugene Romero
Automate every layer: Using Terraform to deploy, configure and maintain Azure Kubernetes clusters
get the slides: https://damn.engineer/slides
Who am I?
Managing Cloud Advisor @ Capgemini
15+ years in IT
Linux nerd
Restoring and modifying Game Boys and iPods
THE DREAM
Cloud native solution
End-to-end automation
Easy to test, repeateable, easy to rollback if needed
Managed Kubernetes clusters in Azure
Proposed solution
Terraform end-to-end
MANAGED KUBERNETES?
TERRAFORM?
Infrastructure-As-Code tool
Source available
Predictably create, change and improve infrastructure
TERRAFORM PROVIDERS
Logical abstraction of upstream APIs
Responsible for exposing and creating resources
3600+ available providers (Nov 2023)
What does it look like?
resource "provider_resource" "any_name" {
key = "value"
other_key = data.from.different.resource
}
Example
resource "azurerm_kubernetes_cluster" "my_cluster" {
name = "${var.environment}-cluster"
resource_group_name = data.azurerm_resource_group.my_rg.name
location = "westeurope"
...
default_node_pool {
min_count = "3"
max_count = "6"
...
}
}
THE PROCESS
Create
Configure
Populate
Demo?
CLUSTER CREATION
Terraform provider
azurerm
Resource group
Kubernetes cluster
Resources created
The sky is the limit...
Container registry
Key Vault
API Management gateway
Networking + firewalls
...
CLUSTER CONFIGURATION
Terraform providers
azurerm
Ingress
Resource created
kubernetes
kubectl
helm
Dream big!
RBAC
CSI Secrets Provider
Service mesh
Any other helper tools
...
POPULATING THE CLUSTER
Terraform providers
Own apps, microservices...
Resource created
kubernetes
helm
TIPS AND WARNINGS
Separate infrastructure and configuration/population
Use Terraform's capabilities to reduce costs
Use terraform plan to visualize changes
CHALLENGES
Changing Azure and Kubernetes APIs
Certain cluster changes require destruction/recreation
Unmaintained custom providers
Edge cases not yet covered by official providers
WINS
Full visibility into clusters and Cloud resources
Identical environments
Disaster recovery
Drift prevention / idempotency
More info
Azure Kubernetes Service
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/kubernetes-service/
Terraform
https://www.terraform.io/
Terraform providers
https://registry.terraform.io/
More info
Demo files
https://github.com/eugeneromero/kubernetes-terraform-demo
Slides
https://damn.engineer/slides
Get in touch!
@theEugeneRomero
https://damn.engineer/
Ask me
for a
sticker!
