cluster-api VS kcp

In this blog post, we will demonstrate how easy and fast it is to deploy Sveltos on an RKE2 cluster with the help of ArgoCD, register two RKE2 Cluster API (CAPI) clusters and create a ClusterProfile to deploy Prometheus and Grafana Helm charts down the managed CAPI clusters.

4. Having moved to a container orchestrator, all of my nodes are immutable. Hardware and VM instances _can_ be born magically into existence. Nearly all infra providers support [cluster-api](https://cluster-api.sigs.k8s.io/). Network infrastructure can now be managed with TF, so I go that route.

## Linux curl -L https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cluster-api/releases/download/v1.4.4/clusterctl-linux-amd64 -o clusterctl sudo install -o root -g root -m 0755 clusterctl /usr/local/bin/clusterctl ## Mac brew install clusterctl

Did you ever try CAPI? https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cluster-api

You might find interesting the capi-rancher-import k8s operator we use in Sylva, it would adopt in Rancher server the Cluster API created k8s clusters (with bootstrap provider kubeadm or even rke2 - you can lookup CAPBR for the latter). I understand your clusters are not created by Cluster API, so if you could move the workloads/resources to new clusters created by Cluster API, this can come handy. (Adoption of non-CAPI clusters into CAPI is not yet a standard practice, more in https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cluster-api/issues/7776)

Most of the comments have mentioned older tools like kubespray, Ansible, Rancher etc. I would suggest the cloud native way using ClusterAPI or use a tool that relies on ClusterAPI in the backend called Talos

Cluster API

Sveltos is a powerful open source project that makes managing Kubernetes add-ons a breeze. It automatically discovers ClusterAPI powered clusters and allows you to easily register any other cluster (like GKE). Then, it seamlessly manages Kubernetes add-ons across all your clusters.

I think that's the actual goal of kcp: https://github.com/kcp-dev/kcp

The Goals.md was a far better introduction, but still a bit abstract. Needs pictures!

I agree with this. Also, have you seen the kcp project? Seems like a promising experiment.

https://github.com/kcp-dev/kcp

And making it so that "many clusters" look exactly like "one cluster" is one of the goals the kcp prototype was exploring (although still early) because I hear this ALL the time:

1. 1 cluster was awesome

2. Many clusters means I rebuild the world

3. I wish there was a way to get the benefits of one cluster across multiples.

Which I believe is a solvable problem and partially what we've been poking at at https://github.com/kcp-dev/kcp (although it's still so early that I don't want to get hopes up).

Simpler and monolith has it's place, but I see it as impossible for any "simple" solution to ever gain enough mindshare to win. A lot of people suggesting monoliths & hosted services, but they are never going to have the community, the presence of something like Kubernetes, which unites people, which people collaborate over, in the same way we all got to learn & experience & co-develop for Docker. The question posted somewhat gets it wrong, "Kubernetes became a thing after Docker became a thing (and so on," implies that they're different things, that tech is about different things, but in many ways Kubernetes is a natural extension & outgrowth, it is a part of the Docker scene, & has continuity with it.

Kubernetes is a thing now, but it's patterns are still underspoken of, underpracticed, underdeployed to the rest of the software world. We will get better at being like Kubernetes, for great benefit. Folks learning how control-loops are advantageous, and learning to use universal API Servers for all their systems will continue to drive not just Kubernetes, but the patterns underlying Kubernetes further into our applications & services & technologies. Tech like KCP[1] is an early indicator of this interest, in using the soul of kubernetes if not it's specific machinery, by creating an independent, non-Kubernetes, but Kubernetes compatible API Server. Having universal storage, having autonomic system control are huge advantages when system building, and gaining those benefits is fairly easy, with or without Kubernetes itself.

I'm hoping we see a DIY cloud'ing become more of a thing. Leaving everything in the hands of hyperscalers is a puzzling and hard to imagine state of affairs, given the hardware nirvana we've experienced in the past two plus decades. Kubernetes is the first viable multi-system operational paradigm, the first diy-able cloud we have, and it's shocking it took that long, but smaller practitioners getting good at converting their sea of individual boxes into something more resembling the Single System Image dreams of old, albeit through a highly indirect Kubernetes-ish route, is a decade or decades long quest we seemingly just started in to a couple years ago.

I'm hoping eventually ubiquotous and pervasive computing starts to dovetail with this world, that we start to have better view & visibility of all the computing resources around us, via standardized, well known interfaces. Rather than the hodgepodge of manufacturer controlled, invisible, un-debuggable overlay networks that alas, constitute the vast majority of the use of the internet these days. Alas the news there is never good, the new Matter standard is, like Thread, inaccessible, unviewable; consumers are expected to remain dumb, ignorant, unaware of how any of it works, merely thankful for whatever magic they receive[2][3]. But as a home-cloud, as the manor re-establishes computing as base & competency for itself (#ManorCompute), & as good projects like WebThings[4] or whatever takes it's place light the darkened damp corridors only robots patrolled, I hope for a reawakening, hope a silent majority becomes more real & known, hope the fed up, sick of this shit, disgusted with remote-service-based technology world starts to manifest & apply real pressure to emerge a healthy, pro-human, pro-user ubiquotous & pervasive computing that gives us an honest shake, that shows what it is, that integrates into our personal home clouds.

I think there's a huge pent up demand & desire for flow-based/evented systems, for Yahoo Pipes, for Node-RED[5]. The paradigm needs help, I think there's too many missing pieces for something like Node-RED to be the one, but re-emerging user-control, giving us ALL flexible means to compute, is key. Exposing & embracing some level of technical literacy is something people want, but no one knows how to articulate it or what they want. We're mired in a "faster horses" stage, and it's fundamentally incorrect.

Last, I have huge hopes for the web. There are incredibly awesome advances being made in the range of peripherals, devices, capabilities the web supports. The web can do so much more. We're barely beginning to use the cutting edge ServiceWorkers, barely beginning to use Custom Elements ("WebComponenets"), and these aren't even that new any more. These are fundamentally revolutionary technologies. Things like File System Access just came back on the scene after over a decade of going nowhere. Secondary screen working group is tying together multiple systems in interesting ways. There's a lot of high-tower shit, in WebAssembly (especially when Interface Bindings starts to allow real interop with JS), in TypeScript, but to me, I think rather than just building up up up there's some very real re-assessments we ought to be making about how and what we build. Trying to make self-documenting machines, trying to make computing visible, these aren't concerns of industrial computing, but they are socially invaluable advances that have been somewhat on hold in the age of Pax React-us, and we're well over half a decade in & while there's endless areas to learn about, improve, get better at in this highly industrialized toolset, I want to think there are some slumbering appetites, some desires to re-assess. I'm a bit afraid/scared of WebAssembly being a huge tower-of-babel time-sink/re-industrializing-focus that distracts from the need for a new vision quest, but I have hope too, I see the yearning. Albeit often expressed in lo-fi counter-culture, which to me is a distraction & avoidance, rather than the socially empowering act that has been a quiet part of the web's promise[6].

[1] https://github.com/kcp-dev/kcp

[2] https://staceyoniot.com/project-chip-becomes-matter/

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27123944

[4] https://webthings.io/

[5] https://nodered.org/

[6] https://webdevlaw.uk/2021/01/30/why-generation-x-will-save-t...