By Rob Hirschfeld
Lately, I’ve been talking about the general concept of hybrid DevOps adding composability, orchestration and services to traditional configuration. It’s time add a concrete example because the RackN team is deliving it with Digital Rebar and Kubernetes.
So far, we enabled a single open platform to install over 18 different configurations of Kubernetes simply by changing command line flags [videos below].
By taking advantage of the Digital Rebar underlay abstractions and orchestration, we are able to use open community installation playbooks for a wide range of configurations.
So far, we’re testing against:
- Three different clouds (AWS, Google and Packet) not including the option of using bare metal.
- Two different operating systems (Ubuntu and Centos)
- Three different software defined networking systems (Flannel, Calico and OpenContrail)
Those 18 are just the tip of the iceberg that we are actively testing. The actual matrix is much deeper.
BUT THAT’S AN EXPLODING TEST MATRIX!?! No. It’s not.
The composable architecture of Digital Rebar means that all of these variations are isolated. We are not creating 18 distinct variations; instead, the system chains options together and abstracts the differences between steps.
That means that we could add different logging options, test sequences or configuration choices into the deployment with minimal coupling of previous steps. This enables operator choice and vendor injection in a way to allows collaboration around common components. By design, we’ve eliminated fragile installation monoliths.
All it takes is a Packet, AWS or Google account to try this out for yourself!