Wallaroo Enterprise Azure Setup Instructions

The following instructions are made to assist users set up their Microsoft Azure Kubernetes environment for running Wallaroo Enterprise. These represent a recommended setup, but can be modified to fit your specific needs.

If your prepared to install the environment now, skip to Setup Environment Steps.

There are two methods we’ve detailed here on how to setup your Kubernetes cloud environment in Azure:

• Quick Setup Script: Download a bash script to automatically set up the Azure environment through the Microsoft Azure command line interface az.

• Manual Setup Guide: A list of the az commands used to create the environment through manual commands.

  Installation Flow

A typical installation of Wallaroo Enterprise follows this flow:

• Create Environment: Create the environment to install Wallaroo that meets the system prerequisites.
• Install Wallaroo: Install Wallaroo into the target environment.
• Configure DNS: Configure DNS services and the Wallaroo instance for your organization’s use.

Azure Prerequisites

To install Wallaroo in your Microsoft Azure environment, the following prerequisites must be met:

• Register a Microsoft Azure account: https://azure.microsoft.com/.
• Install the Microsoft Azure CLI and complete the Azure CLI Get Started Guide to connect your az application to your Microsoft Azure account.
• The Kubernetes cluster must include the following minimum settings:
  • Nodes must be OS type Linux the containerd driver as the default.
  • Role-based access control (RBAC) must be enabled.
  • Minimum of 4 nodes, each node with a minimum of 8 CPU cores and 16 GB RAM. 50 GB will be allocated per node for a total of 625 GB for the entire cluster.
  • RBAC is enabled.
  • Minimum machine type is set to to Standard_D8s_v4.

The following software or runtimes are required Wallaroo version 2023.2. Most are automatically available through the supported cloud providers.

Recommendations

• IMPORTANT NOTE

  Organizations that intend to stop and restart their Kubernetes environment on an intentional or regular basis are recommended to use a single availability zone for their nodes. This minimizes issues such as persistent volumes in different availability zones, etc.

  Organizations that intend to use Wallaroo Enterprise in a high availability cluster are encouraged to follow best practices including using separate availability zones for redundancy, etc.

Custom Configurations

Wallaroo can be configured with custom installations depending on your organization’s needs. The following options are available:

• Install Wallaroo to Specific Nodes: How to specify what nodes in a Kubernetes cluster to install Wallaroo to.
• Install Wallaroo with Minimum Services: How to install Wallaroo with reduced services to fit into a lower-resource environment.
• Taints and Tolerances Guide: How to configure Wallaroo for specific taints and tolerances so ensure that only Wallaroo services are running in specific nodes.

Standard Setup Variables

The following variables are used in the Quick Setup Script and the Manual Setup Guide. Modify them as best fits your organization.

Setup Environment Steps

Quick Setup Script

A sample script is available here, and creates an Azure Kubernetes environment ready for use with Wallaroo Enterprise. This script requires the following prerequisites listed above and uses the variables listed in Standard Setup Variables. Modify them as best fits your organization’s needs.

The following steps are geared towards a standard Linux or macOS system that supports the prerequisites listed above. Modify these steps based on your local environment.

1. Download the script above.
2. In a terminal window set the script status as execute with the command chmod +x wallaroo_enterprise_install_azure_expandable.bash.
3. Modify the script variables listed above based on your requirements.
4. Run the script with either bash wallaroo_enterprise_install_azure_expandable.bash or ./wallaroo_enterprise_install_azure_expandable.bash from the same directory as the script.

Manual Setup Guide

The following steps are guidelines to assist new users in setting up their Azure environment for Wallaroo.
The process uses the variables listed in Standard Setup Variables. Modify them as best fits your organization’s needs.

See the Azure Command-Line Interface for full details on commands and settings.

Setting up an Azure AKS environment is based on the Azure Kubernetes Service tutorial, streamlined to show the minimum steps in setting up your own Wallaroo environment in Azure.

Manual Guide

This follows these major steps:

• Create an Azure Resource Group
• Create an Azure Container Registry
• Create the Azure Kubernetes Environment

Set Variables

The following are the variables used for the rest of the commands. Modify them as fits your organization’s needs.

WALLAROO_RESOURCE_GROUP=wallaroogroup
WALLAROO_GROUP_LOCATION=eastus
WALLAROO_CONTAINER_REGISTRY=wallarooacr
WALLAROO_CLUSTER=wallarooaks
WALLAROO_SKU_TYPE=Base
WALLAROO_VM_SIZE=Standard_D8s_v4
POSTGRES_VM_SIZE=Standard_D8s_v4
ENGINELB_VM_SIZE=Standard_D8s_v4
ENGINE_VM_SIZE=Standard_F8s_v2

Create an Azure Resource Group

To create an Azure Resource Group for Wallaroo in Microsoft Azure, use the following template:

az group create --name $WALLAROO_RESOURCE_GROUP --location $WALLAROO_GROUP_LOCATION

(Optional): Set the default Resource Group to the one recently created. This allows other Azure commands to automatically select this group for commands such as az aks list, etc.

az configure --defaults group={Resource Group Name}

For example:

az configure --defaults group=wallarooGroup

Create an Azure Container Registry

An Azure Container Registry(ACR) manages the container images for services includes Kubernetes. The template for setting up an Azure ACR that supports Wallaroo is the following:

az acr create -n $WALLAROO_CONTAINER_REGISTRY -g $WALLAROO_RESOURCE_GROUP --sku $WALLAROO_SKU_TYPE --location $WALLAROO_GROUP_LOCATION

Create an Azure Kubernetes Services

And now we can create our Kubernetes service in Azure that will host our Wallaroo with the az aks create command. This will set the

az aks create \
--resource-group $WALLAROO_RESOURCE_GROUP \
--name $WALLAROO_CLUSTER \
--node-count 3 \
--generate-ssh-keys \
--vm-set-type VirtualMachineScaleSets \
--load-balancer-sku standard \
--node-vm-size $WALLAROO_VM_SIZE \
--nodepool-name mainpool \
--attach-acr $WALLAROO_CONTAINER_REGISTRY \
--kubernetes-version=1.23.15 \
--zones 1 \
--location $WALLAROO_GROUP_LOCATION

Wallaroo Enterprise Nodepools

Wallaroo Enterprise supports autoscaling and static nodepools. The following commands are used to create both to support the Wallaroo Enterprise cluster.

The following static nodepools are set up to support the Wallaroo cluster for postgres. Update the VM_SIZE based on your requirements.

az aks nodepool add \
--resource-group $WALLAROO_RESOURCE_GROUP \
--cluster-name $WALLAROO_CLUSTER \
--name postgres \
--node-count 1 \
--node-vm-size $POSTGRES_VM_SIZE \
--no-wait \
--node-taints wallaroo.ai/postgres=true:NoSchedule \
--zones 1

The following autoscaling nodepools are used for the engineLB and the engine nodepools. Adjust the settings based on your organizations requirements.

az aks nodepool add \
--resource-group $WALLAROO_RESOURCE_GROUP \
--cluster-name $WALLAROO_CLUSTER \
--name enginelb \
--node-count 1 \
--node-vm-size $ENGINELB_VM_SIZE \
--no-wait \
--enable-cluster-autoscaler \
--max-count 3 \
--min-count 1 \
--node-taints wallaroo.ai/enginelb=true:NoSchedule \
--labels wallaroo-node-type=enginelb \
--zones 1

az aks nodepool add \
--resource-group $WALLAROO_RESOURCE_GROUP \
--cluster-name $WALLAROO_CLUSTER \
--name engine \
--node-count 1 \
--node-vm-size $ENGINE_VM_SIZE \
--no-wait \
--enable-cluster-autoscaler \
--max-count 3 \
--min-count 1 \
--node-taints wallaroo.ai/engine=true:NoSchedule \
--labels wallaroo-node-type=engine \
--zones 1

For additional settings such as customizing the node pools for your Wallaroo Kubernetes cluster to customize the type of virtual machines used and other settings, see the Microsoft Azure documentation on using system node pools.

Download Wallaroo Kubernetes Configuration

Once the Kubernetes environment is complete, associate it with the local Kubernetes configuration by importing the credentials through the following template command:

az aks get-credentials --resource-group $WALLAROO_RESOURCE_GROUP --name $WALLAROO_CLUSTER

Verify the cluster is available through the kubectl get nodes command.

kubectl get nodes

NAME                               STATUS   ROLES   AGE   VERSION
aks-engine-99896855-vmss000000     Ready    agent   40m   v1.23.8
aks-enginelb-54433467-vmss000000   Ready    agent   48m   v1.23.8
aks-mainpool-37402055-vmss000000   Ready    agent   81m   v1.23.8
aks-mainpool-37402055-vmss000001   Ready    agent   81m   v1.23.8
aks-mainpool-37402055-vmss000002   Ready    agent   81m   v1.23.8
aks-postgres-40215394-vmss000000   Ready    agent   52m   v1.23.8

Install Wallaroo

With the environment prepared, Wallaroo can now be installed.