Kubernetes

I run quite a few applications in Docker as part of my home network - there’s a small selection below, but at any one time there might be 10-15 more apps I’m playing around with:

• plex - Streaming media server
• unifi - Ubiquiti Network Controller
• homebridge - Apple Homekit compatible smart home integration
• influxdb - Open source time series database
• grafana - Data visualization & Monitoring
• pihole - internet tracking and ad blocker
• vault - Hashicorp secret management

Until recently a single PhotonOS VM with Docker was all I needed to run - everything shared the same host IP, stored it’s configuration locally or on an NFS mount and generally ran fine. However, my wife and kids have become more dependant on plex, and homebridge (which I use to control the air conditioning in my house), and if they’re down, it’s a problem. So, I embarked on a little project to provide some better availability, and learn a little in the process.

Following on from me recent post deploying Kubernetes with the NSX-T CNP , I wanted to extend my environment to make use of the vSphere Cloud Provider to enable Persistent Volumes backed by vSphere storage. This allows me to use Storage Policy to create Persistent Volumes based on policy. For example, I’m going to create two classes of storage, Fast and Slow - Fast will be vSAN based and Slow will be NFS based.

I’ve done a fair amount of work learning VMware PKS and NSX-T, but I wanted to drop down a level and get more familiar with the inner workings for Kubernetes, as well as explore some of the newer features that are exposed by the NSX Container Plugin that are not yet in the PKS integrations.

The NSX-T docs are…not great, I certainly don’t think you can work out the steps required from the official NCP installation guide without a healthy dollop of background knowledge and familiarity with Kubernetes and CNI. Anthony Burke published this guide which is great, and I am lucky enough to be able to pick his brains on our corporate slack.

It will be no surprise, given my impending move to the VMware PSO NSX Practice , that this morning I’ve been focussing on NSX-T. The two sessions I attended were the Introduction to NSX-T Architecture and Integrating NSX-T with Kubernetes. In a weird twist of scheduling, the Kubernetes session was before the introduction session, but it worked out OK.

I found the Kubernetes session really enjoyable and really felt like the speakers delivered a great overview of the integration and how they work together. I was pleasantly surprised with how familiar a lot of the concepts were, coming from an NSX-v and vRealize Automation background. It’s similar, but different! This is something I can really get my teeth into.