As of Palette 3.2, this feature is deprecated. Use the Deploy a Virtual Cluster to a Cluster Group guide to learn how to deploy Palette Virtual clusters.
You can deploy Palette Virtual Clusters in a Host Cluster. To do this, Palette provides the Enable Virtual Clusters option for new or existing clusters. Clusters with the virtual clusters feature enabled are called Host Clusters.
The advantages of a virtual cluster environment are:
- You can operate with admin-level privileges while ensuring strong isolation.
- Virtual clusters reduce operational overhead and improve resource utilization.
Follow steps below to enable and deploy a virtual cluster.
A Spectro Cloud account.
A configured Cluster.
Attach any required policies in your cloud account that must be added to your virtual cluster deployment.
- For AWS, refer to the Required IAM Policies documentation.
- For Azure, no additional policies are required.
Palette doesn't support Usage and Cost metrics for Virtual Clusters running on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
In some situations additional node-level policies must be added to your deployment.
To add node-level policies:
- In Cluster Mode, switch to the Tenant Admin project.
- Select Tenant Settings in the Main Menu.
- Click Cloud Accounts and ensure Add IAM policies is enabled for your cloud account. If an account does not already exist, you must add one.
- You can specify any additional policies to include in virtual clusters deployed with this cloud account.
- For AWS, add the AmazonEBSCSIDriver policy so that the virtual clusters can access the underlying host cluster's storage. Check out the Palette required IAM policies documentation to learn more about additional IAM policies.
- Confirm your changes.
Follow these steps to enable virtual clusters on a new or existing Host Cluster:
- In Cluster Mode, select Clusters in the Main Menu.
- Select a Host Cluster from the list and click Settings > Cluster Settings > Virtual Clusters.
- Toggle the Enable Virtual Clusters option to on.
- Select an endpoint in the Cluster Endpoint Type drop-down menu: Load Balancer or Ingress.
- Configure the load balancer or ingress endpoint.
These requirements apply to a Load Balancer endpoint:
- The Host Cluster supports dynamic provisioning of load balancers.
- If the Host Cluster is in the public cloud, the AKS/EKS/GCP Cloud Controller Manager must support load balancers by default.
- If the Host Cluster is in a private data center, a bare metal load balancer provider such as MetalLB must be installed and configured.
To deploy a new virtual cluster in an existing Host Cluster:
In Cluster Mode select a project from the drop-down menu, and click Clusters in the Main menu.
Click the Virtual Clusters tab to list available virtual clusters, and select Add New Virtual Cluster.
Provide Deploy New Virtual Cluster configuration information:
Select the Host Cluster in which you'll enable virtual clusters.
Add a cluster name.
Optionally, provide a Description and Tags.
Click the Attach Profile button to assign a profile.
You can attach one or more Add-on layers to this cluster. If you do not have a Cluster Profile, refer to Creating Cluster Profile for details.
(Optional) If the Host Cluster's Cluster Endpoint Type is a Load Balancer, you can provide the following advanced configuration options here:
External Traffic Policy: Cluster or Local.
Load Balancer Source Ranges: Limits which client IPs can access the load balancer. Inputs must be a comma-separated list of CIDR ranges in
a.b.c.d/xformat. Network Load Balancer support on AWS provides additional details.
To validate your virtual cluster is available and ready for use, navigate to Clusters > Virtual Clusters, which lists all your virtual clusters.