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Creating a Karbon K8S cluster

Overview

Before we can deploy an application using kubernetes we need to create a Kubernetes cluster first. The cluster that we are ging to create consists out of the following VMs:

  • 1 Master node (VM)
  • 1 Worker node (VM)
  • 1 etcd nodes (VM)

Info

For more information on the terms master, worker and etcd, please look at https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/.

Creating a Karbon Cluster

  1. In your Prism Central, select the three dash in the top left corner and select Services > Karbon

  2. A new browser window will open and accept the HTTPS error you will see.

  3. In the shown browser screen click on the + Create Cluster button for starting to create the kubernetes cluster

  4. Provide the required parameters that are asked for in the wizard. The following screenshots can be used as a guideline

    Tip

    You can also hover over the ? sign to get more information about each configuration option.

  5. Choose Development Cluster

  6. Enter a name for your cluster initials-cluster and choose your HPOC as Nutanix Cluster

  7. Provide the Worker, Master and etcd settings as default; click Next

  8. Provide the Network Provider settings as default; click Next

    Info

    We use flannel as the network provider. More information on Flannel can be found here

  9. Provide the Storage class settings. For the cluster settings use admin and the cluster password that you used to login to the cluster.

  10. Click on the Create button to have the cluster created by the system. Follow the process in the Karbon UI.

    Note

    Based on the resources available on your cluster, it will take time. Wait until the cluster has been created before proceeding to the next part of the module!!

During the creation of the Kubernetes cluster there will have been created:

  • VMs

  • Persistent Storage as VolumeGroup

Cluster properties

In the Karbon UI, hover over the just created cluster (initials-cluster in our example) and click on it.

This will open another screen which shows the parts out of which the cluster is created according to the provided parameters that have been provided during the creation phase.

The below screenshots provide an example for the three parts, Storage Class, Volume and Add-on.

This concludes the end of this part of the module. You now have a running Kubernetes Cluster.

Takeaways

  • It is quite easy to create a kubernetes cluster using Nutanix Karbon
  • Both Development and Production cluster with different node count options are available
  • Flannel is the only CNI option available in the Karbon GUI. However, Calico is avaialble to configure through REST API calls