Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling and management of containerized applications. Kubernetes can be deployed on popular cloud platforms, e.g. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP). At its core, it consists of a cluster of compute resources that schedule and host ForgeRock containerized applications.

Choosing a cloud provider that is the best fit for your initiative is the first step in the planning process. The decision is influenced by a variety of factors. For example, there may be unique features or services offered by a certain cloud provider or your organization may already have a relationship with one.

In addition to being able to create your own customized deployment of Kubernetes in AWS or GCP, these providers also offer options to facilitate Kubernetes as a managed service. This has the potential to reduce the complexity of establishing the Kubernetes environment, but it may also have some functional limitations. What will ultimately drive the decision on which is the best approach will depend upon specific requirements of your initiative.

Regardless of which cloud provider or deployment method you choose, certain design considerations should be kept in mind:

Choose a cloud provider region for your deployment that is geographically closest to your location to help minimize network latency.

Deploy your Kubernetes cluster nodes in at least three of your cloud provider’s availability zones in order to facilitate fault tolerance and high-availability. Availability zones represent fully isolated data centers connected by high bandwidth / low latency network connections.

Determine how your cloud based Kubernetes platform will integrate with your on-premise or other cloud based network environments, as well as the Internet. This will require proper planning of IP network address space, routing and VPN, or other network connection methods supported by the cloud provider.

Plan and implement network security controls that allow sufficient access for the applications to function, while limiting unnecessary network exposure.

Identify and plan where critical functionality required to operate a Kubernetes cluster will be located within the environment, e.g. image and code repositories, DNS zones, certificate management and logging. Cloud providers often offer their own services that can address these requirements or these can be customized. Specific implementation details, requirements, approaches and service offerings will vary between providers; however, design considerations are going to be quite similar. 

If there is a desire for an additional layer of high-availability and fault tolerance, a cluster federation approach can be considered. In this model, a cluster is deployed in each region and linked together using a federation control plane.

It is highly recommended to use an “infrastructure as code” approach wherever possible to deploy your cloud infrastructure. This provides a more reliable and repeatable deployment process and is especially useful in the early stages of testing, as environments can be easily built and rebuilt when necessary. Parameterizing your deployment code can also make it much easier to deploy similar isolated environments to host Development, User Acceptance Testing and Production environments.

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