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Expose HELM charts as Service Specifications

Manage Helm charts installations via OpenSlice Service Specifications and Service Orders.

Intended Audience: Service Designers

Kubernetes is an orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. One can interact though the Kubernetes API and it has a set of objects ready for use out of the box.

Helm is a tool that automates the creation, packaging, configuration, and deployment of Kubernetes applications by combining your configuration files into a single reusable package

At the heart of Helm is the packaging format called charts. Each chart comprises one or more Kubernetes manifests -- and a given chart can have child charts and dependent charts, as well. Using Helm charts:

  - Reduces the complexity of deploying Microservices
  - Enhances deployment speed
  - Developers already know the technology

There are many Helm charts and Helm repositories there that are ready to be used

Enable loose coupling and more orchestration scenarios

Developers create and deploy applications in things they already know (e.g. Helm charts)

Use the TMF models as wrapper entities around Helm charts

Use OpenSlice to expose them in service catalogs and deploy them in complex scenarios (service bundles) involving also other systems:

- Include e.g. RAN controllers, 
- Pass values through life cycle rules from one service to another, 
- Manage multiple Helms in multiple clusters

The installation of HELM charts is based on OpenSlice CRD support

Please read more here

For installing HELM charts we will use ArgoCD a well known Kubernetes-native continuous deployment (CD) tool

ArgoCD is a Kubernetes-native continuous deployment (CD) tool

While just deploying Heml charts is just a scenario for ArgoCD , in future one can exploit it for many things

Despite some other tools like FluxCD, it provides also a UI which is useful for management and troubleshooting

We will mainly use the CRD of Kind: Application that ArgoCD can manage

Before proceeding, install ArgoCD in your management cluster, by following ArgoCD instructions

As soon as you install ArgoCD, OpenSlice is automatically aware for specific new Kinds. The one we will use is is the Kind: Application that ArgoCD can manage under the apiGroup argoproj.io

Browse to Resource Specifications. You will see an entry like the following:

Application@argoproj.io/v1alpha1@kubernetes@https://10.10.10.144:6443/

see image:

Example: Offer Jenkins as a Service via Openslice

We will use the Kind: Application of ArgoCD and create a ResourceFacingServiceSpecification for Jenkins

1. Go to Service Specifications
2. Create New Specification
3. Give a Name, eg. jenkinsrfs
4. Go to Resource Specification Relationships
5. Assign ```Application@argoproj.io/v1alpha1@kubernetes@https://10.10.10.144:6443/```

Focus now on the characteristics configuration.

First we need to map the lifecycle of ArgoCD Application to TMF Resource State

In ArgoCD the field health.status has the value that we need to check (Healty, Progressing, etc)

The _CR_SPEC can be designed first in a YAML or json editor. Let's see a YAML definition:

```

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1 kind: Application metadata: finalizers: - resources-finalizer.argocd.argoproj.io name: openslice-jenkins namespace: argocd spec: project: default destination: namespace: opencrdtest name: in-cluster source: repoURL: https://charts.jenkins.io targetRevision: 4.6.1 chart: jenkins helm: values: | controller: service: type: ClusterIP syncPolicy: automated: prune: true selfHeal: true allowEmpty: false syncOptions: - Validate=false - CreateNamespace=true - PrunePropagationPolicy=foreground - PruneLast=true - RespectIgnoreDifferences=true ```

NOTICE

On each installation OSOM will change the name of the resource in order to be unique (will have a UUID)

name: openslice-jenkins

destination namespace that ArgoCD will use is the name opencrdtest

destination: namespace: opencrdtest

This implies that ArgoCD installs the Jenkins always in the same namespace

To avoid this we will create a simple pre-provision rule to change the namespace properly

See the following image:

  1. Drag-Drop the _CR_SPEC characteristic of jenkinsrfs from the Service>Text blocks
  2. Drag-Drop Text>Formatted text block
  3. Drag-Drop Text>Multi-line text input block
  4. Copy paste the YAML text
  5. Change the spec: destination:namespace to the value %s
  6. Drag-Drop Lists>Create list with block delete 2 items (click the gear icon). Connect it to formatted text block
  7. Drag-Drop Context>Current Service Order block and select the id. Connect it to the List
  8. Save the PRE_PROVISION Rule

Expose the service to your users

Expose then as CustomerFacingServiceSpecification by using the previous RFSS as Service Specification Relationship 1. Create a Jenkins service and mark as Bundle and save it 2. Go to Service Specification Relationships and assign Jenkinsrfs 3. Add also a Logo if you wish

Expose it now to a Category and a Catalog to be available for ordering.

Order the service

Order the service from the catalog.

Soon the order will be completed and the Services will be active

How to access the Jenkins installation:

From the Supporting services of the Service Order, select the ResourceFacingService (jenkinsrfs)

The ResourceFacingService has also supporting resources in resource inventory.

One is the resource reference to the application (e.g. cr_tmpname...), the other is a secret (e.g. cr87893...).

Click to go to the secret resource (This is in the Resource inventory of OpenSlice)

Use them to login in your Jenkins.

Exposing Jenkins to you external is a matter of cluster configuration and request (nodeport, load balancing, etc)! This is not a topic for this example