Introducing the Weaveworks Kubernetes Library

We put together a collection of educational pages on how to run Kubernetes on AWS , focusing on best practices for configuration, installation options and management. Topics covered include: what Amazon services are required, the CNI interface and how pod networking is accomplished, defining ingress, how to use datastores with Kubernetes and how to meet the AWS IAM requirements.

We’ve been busy here at Weaveworks curating links and expressing our opinions on what the best practices are for configuring, installing and managing your cloud native applications.  The result of this is a collection of educational pages that we think helps you navigate the plethora of links available on these topics.  

We’ve sorted through the information out there and summarized and linked to the best blogs and tutorials that show you how to migrate, run and manage your own applications on Kubernetes.

The first set of pages in the Kubernetes library are about installing and running highly available Kubernetes clusters on AWS.

Kubernetes on AWS: All you need to know

Do you have questions on what the best practices are for installing and running Kubernetes on AWS?   Then the three part series: Kubernetes on AWS: Tutorial and Best Practices for Deployment might be for you.

Keep in mind that this is describing what you need to do now at AWS to install Kubernetes and it doesn’t take into account any of the new product announcements from the last AWS Re:Invent conference.  If you’re looking for an overview on those important announcements see this question and answer session by Abby Fuller at one of our recent Weave Online User Group talks.

We’ll be covering AKS (Amazon Kubernetes Service) in this series in a few months time, once the technology has been officially released at Amazon.  

Here’s a short summary of what you can expect in this iteration of the Kubernetes on AWS pages.

Part 1 – Kubernetes on AWS: Tutorial and Best Practices for Deployment

In the first part, we describe all of the components you need to install and set up a highly available Kubernetes cluster on AWS.   Topics covered include: what Amazon services are required, the CNI interface and how pod networking is accomplished, defining ingress, how to use datastores with Kubernetes and how to meet the AWS IAM requirements.  

Part 2 – Kubernetes Custom Cluster: Building Your Own

In the second part we provide a detailed overview of the installation options available to you and then we provide recommendations on which installer you should use and when.

After a thorough survey of the “best of breed Kubernetes” installers,  we provide step by step instructions on how to set up a cluster with kops and then verify and visualize it with Weave Cloud.

Part 3 – Weaveworks & AWS: How we manage Kubernetes clusters

And finally in part 3, how we structure and manage Weave Cloud as it runs on AWS in Kubernetes - our own SaaS here at Weaveworks is described in detail.   We describe how we set up alerts, how we manage feature changes and what happens if someone accidently deletes the cluster (which has happened!) and how when disaster reigns using GitOps best practices makes your life easier.

To Summarize

These pages will be updated on a regular basis as the technology evolves. We have plans to write a lot more of these educational pages on a number of other topics.

We love to hear from you. If you disagree with what we’ve written and want to discuss it or if you feel we need add or remove something, we’d be more than happy to consider your input! Contact us on Slack or Twitter or via the old-fashioned way and email us at dx@weave.works.