Azure Kubernetes Service
This section presents some pointers on setting up and managing a Kubernetes cluster tailored for WorkflowGen in Azure.
To create a new cluster that supports Linux and Windows workloads, see the Create a Windows Server container on an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster using the Azure CLI Microsoft article, which includes step-by-step instructions on how to create the cluster. Follow all the instructions, including creating a Windows node pool. At the end, you should have at least two nodes: a Linux node and a Windows node.
You can use Azure Active Directory to authenticate and authorize users in the cluster. See the Integrate Azure Active Directory with Azure Kubernetes Service using the Azure CLI Microsoft article for more information.
It's only possible to integrate Azure Active Directory with the creation of a new cluster.
By default, AKS doesn't restrict further Windows nodes from preventing Linux deployment on them. It's recommended to use taints and tolerations to avoid problems with Linux deployment being scheduled to Windows nodes. The following is an example of how you can use taints and tolerations to manage hybrid deployments.
Tainting all Windows nodes will prevent any deployment to Windows nodes from being scheduled except when it has the required toleration. Therefore, for many Linux Helm charts that don't have a node selector, the deployments to Linux nodes will automatically be scheduled. Google Kubernetes Engine does this by default. Execute the following command to taint a Windows node:
kubectl taint nodes "<NODE_NAME>" os=windows:NoSchedule
Replace
<NODE_NAME> with the name of the Windows node.To be able to deploy Windows pods to Windows nodes, you have to use a combination of tolerations and node selectors in your deployment specification. For example, consider this WorkflowGen deployment:
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: wfgen-webapps
spec:
replicas: 3
strategy:
type: Recreate
selector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: workflowgen
app.kubernetes.io/component: webapps
template:
metadata:
labels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: workflowgen
app.kubernetes.io/component: webapps
spec:
containers:
- name: wfgen
image: advantys/workflowgen:7.18.3-win-ltsc2019
imagePullPolicy: Always
resources:
requests:
memory: "2Gi"
cpu: "1"
limits:
memory: "2Gi"
cpu: "1"
ports:
- name: http
containerPort: 80
protocol: TCP
envFrom:
- configMapRef:
name: wfgen-config
env:
- name: WFGEN_START_SERVICE
value: webapps
livenessProbe:
periodSeconds: 30
timeoutSeconds: 5
initialDelaySeconds: 60
exec:
command:
- powershell
- C:\healthcheck.ps1
livenessProbe:
timeoutSeconds: 5
initialDelaySeconds: 60
exec:
command:
- powershell
- -Command
- if (Test-Path "C:\iislog\W3SVC\*log") { return 0 } else { return 1 }
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: C:\wfgen\data
name: wfgdata
- mountPath: C:\wfgen\licenses
readOnly: true
name: licenses
- mountPath: C:\secrets
readOnly: true
name: secrets
volumes:
- name: wfgdata
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: wfgdata-pvc
- name: licenses
secret:
secretName: wfgen-license-secret
items:
# The following must match the name of the license item in
# the license secret, e.g. the name of the license file
- key: WorkflowGen.lic
path: WorkflowGen.lic
- name: secrets
secret:
secretName: wfgen-sec
In order for it to be scheduled to a Windows node, you would have to add the following to the template's
spec:nodeSelector:
kubernetes.io/os: windows
tolerations:
- key: os
operator: Equal
value: windows
effect: NoSchedule
This adds a toleration for the taint that you've just added to the node and tells the Kubernetes scheduler to select a Windows node when scheduling the WorkflowGen pods.
You can also simplify this by creating a
RuntimeClass object that holds this information and referencing the runtime class in your Windows deployments:windows-runtimeclass.yaml
apiVersion: node.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: RuntimeClass
metadata:
name: windows-1809
handler: 'docker'
scheduling:
nodeSelector:
kubernetes.io/os: 'windows'
kubernetes.io/arch: 'amd64'
node.kubernetes.io/windows-build: '10.0.17763'
tolerations:
- key: os
operator: Equal
value: windows
effect: NoSchedule
Apply this file:
kubectl apply -f windows-runtimeclass.yaml
Then, add the following to the template's
spec:runtimeClass: windows-1809
As you can see, this
RuntimeClass also ensures that the deployment will be on a Windows LTSC 2019 (1809) node.There are two things that you must consider for update management: the Kubernetes version and the operating system update. For information on upgrading the cluster to a specific Kubernetes version, see Upgrade an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster.
Applying security patches and updating operating systems differ for Linux and Windows nodes. To get started with operating system updates, see Apply security and kernel updates to Linux nodes in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for more information. (Don't worry about the name of the article, there is a paragraph about Windows updates in it.)
You can use an autoscaler in AKS to automatically scale up the number of nodes in your cluster based on rules to keep up with demands. See Automatically scale a cluster to meet application demands on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for more information. This feature pairs well with the Kubernetes horizontal pod autoscaler. See Horizontal Pod Autoscaler for more information.
You can also use Azure Container Instances to quickly scale up your cluster for a short period of time. See Scaling options for applications in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for more information.
Last modified 3yr ago