Azure Reference Platform

This repository contains a reference Azure Platform Configuration for Crossplane. It's a great starting point for building internal cloud platforms with Azure and offer a self-service API to your internal development teams.

This platform provides APIs to provision fully configured AKS clusters, with secure networking, and stateful cloud services (Azure PostgreSQL) designed to securely connect to the nodes in each AKS cluster — all composed using cloud service primitives from the Official Upbound Azure Provider. App deployments can securely connect to the infrastructure they need using secrets distributed directly to the app namespace.

Overview

This reference platform defines a custom API for creating an AKS cluster (XCluster) which includes the actual AKS cluster, a network fabric and Prometheus and other cluster services (XServices). Additionally it defines a custom API for provisioning Postgres Databases (XPostgreSQLInstance).

graph LR;
    MyApp(My App)---MyCluster(XRC: my-cluster);
    MyCluster---XRD1(XRD: XCluster);
    MyApp---MyDB(XRC: my-db);
    MyDB---XRD2(XRD: XPostgreSQLInstance);
		subgraph Configuration:upbound/platform-ref-azure;
	    XRD1---Composition(XAKS, XNetwork, XServices);
	    XRD2---Composition2(Composition);
		end
		subgraph Provider:upbound/provider-azure
	    Composition---Network.MRs(MRs: ResourceGroup, VirtualNetwork, Subnet);
	    Composition---AKS.MRs(MRs: KubernetesCluster);
	    Composition2---Postgres.MRs(MRs: VirtualNetworkRule, Server);
		end

style MyApp color:#000,fill:#e6e6e6,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px
style MyCluster color:#000,fill:#D68A82,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px
style MyDB color:#000,fill:#D68A82,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px
style Configuration:upbound/platform-ref-azure fill:#f1d16d,opacity:0.3
style Provider:upbound/provider-azure fill:#81CABB,opacity:0.3
style XRD1 color:#000,fill:#f1d16d,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px,stroke-dasharray: 5 5
style XRD2 color:#000,fill:#f1d16d,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px,stroke-dasharray: 5 5
style Composition color:#000,fill:#f1d16d,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px
style Composition2 color:#000,fill:#f1d16d,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px

style Network.MRs color:#000,fill:#81CABB,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px
style AKS.MRs color:#000,fill:#81CABB,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px
style Postgres.MRs color:#000,fill:#81CABB,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px

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Learn more about Composite Resources in the Crossplane Docs.

Quickstart

Pre-Requisites

Before we can install the reference platform we want to install the up CLI. This is a utility that makes following this quickstart guide easier. Everything described here can also be done in a declarative approach which we highly recommend for any production type use-case.

To install up run this install script:

curl -sL https://cli.upbound.io | sh

See up docs for more install options.

For installing the platform we need a running Crossplane control plane. We are using Universal Crossplane (UXP) . Ensure that your kubectl context is pointing to the correct Kubernetes cluster or for example create a kind cluster:

kind create cluster

Finally install UXP into the upbound-system namespace:

up uxp install

You can validate the install by inspecting all installed components:

kubectl get all -n upbound-system

Install the Azure Reference Platform

Now you can install this reference platform. It's packaged as a Crossplane configuration package so there is a single command to install this package:

up ctp configuration install xpkg.upbound.io/upbound/platform-ref-azure:v0.4.1

Validate the install by inspecting the provider and configuration packages:

kubectl get providers,providerrevision

kubectl get configurations,configurationrevisions

Check the marketplace for the latest version of this platform.

Configure the Azure provider

Before we can use the reference platform we need to configure it with Azure credentials:

# Create a azure.json file with the azure cli:
# Replace <Subscription ID> with your subscription ID.
az ad sp create-for-rbac --sdk-auth --role Owner --scopes /subscriptions/<Subscription ID> \
  > azure.json

# Create a K8s secret with the Azure creds:
kubectl create secret generic azure-creds -n upbound-system --from-file=credentials=./azure.json

# Configure the Azure Provider to use the secret:
kubectl apply -f examples/azure-default-provider.yaml

See provider-azure docs for more detailed configuration options

Using the Azure reference platform

🎉 Congratulations. You have just installed your first Crossplane powered platform!

Application developers can now use the platform to request resources which than will provisioned in Azure. This would usually done by bundling a claim as part of the application code. In our example here we simply create the claims directly:

Create a custom defined cluster:

kubectl apply -f examples/cluster-claim.yaml

Create a custom defined database:

kubectl apply -f examples/postgres-claim.yaml

You can verify status by inspecting the claims, composites and managed resources:

kubectl get claim,composite,managed

To delete the provisioned resources you would simply delete the claims again:

kubectl delete -f examples/cluster-claim.yaml,examples/postgres-claim.yaml

To uninstall the provider & platform configuration:

kubectl delete configurations.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-platform-ref-azure
kubectl delete providers.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-provider-azure
kubectl delete providers.pkg.crossplane.io crossplane-contrib-provider-helm

Customize for your Organization

So far we have used the existing reference platform but haven't made any changes. Lets change this and customize the platform by ensuring that AKS Cluster is deployed to Frankfurt (eu-central-1) and that clusters are limitted to 10 nodes.

For the following examples we are using my-org and my-platform:

ORG=my-org
PLATFORM=my-platform

Pre-Requisites

First you need to create a free Upbound account to push your custom platform. Afterwards you can log in:

up login --username=$ORG

Make the changes

To make your changes clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/upbound/platform-ref-azure.git $PLATFORM && cd $PLATFORM

In the AKS composition find the location definitions and change them from West US 2 to West Europe. Also find the defaultNodePool[0].nodeCount and change it from 1 to 3.

Build and push your platform

To share your new platform you need to build and distribute this package.

To build the package use the up xpkg build command:

up xpkg build --name package.xpkg --package-root=package --examples-root=examples

Afterwards you can it to the marketplace. Don't worry it's private to you.

TAG=v0.1.0
up repo create ${PLATFORM}
up xpkg push ${ORG}/${PLATFORM}:${TAG} -f package/package.xpkg

You can now see your listing in the marketplace:

open https://marketplace.upbound.io/configurations/${ORG}/${PLATFORM}/${TAG}

Using your custom platform

Now if you want to use it you can follow the steps from above. The only difference is that you need to specify a package-pull-secret as the package is currently private:

up ctp pull-secret create personal-pull-secret

up ctp configuration install xpkg.upbound.io/${ORG}/${PLATFORM}:${TAG} --package-pull-secrets=personal-pull-secret

For alternative declarative installation approach see the example Configuration manifest. Please update to your org, platform and tag before applying.

🎉 Congratulations. You have just build and installed your first custom Crossplane powered platform!

Questions?

For any questions, thoughts and comments don't hesitate to reach out or drop by slack.crossplane.io, and say hi!