Deploy the zinc helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the Zinc Helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), we will follow these steps:

1. **Create an AKS Cluster**: We'll use Azure's native Pulumi library to set up an AKS cluster where we'll deploy our Helm chart. We'll configure the cluster with an appropriate Kubernetes version, node size, and the number of nodes.

2. **Setup and Configuration**: We need to ensure that our environment is set up with the appropriate configuration for deploying resources on Azure using Pulumi. This includes having the Azure CLI installed and logged in to an Azure subscription.

3. **Deploy the Helm Chart**: Using Pulumi's Kubernetes module, we will deploy the Zinc Helm chart to the AKS cluster we provisioned. We'll specify the necessary values for the chart, including its repository and version.

Now, let's go through the Pulumi TypeScript program:

```typescript
import * as azure from '@pulumi/azure-native';
import * as pulumi from '@pulumi/pulumi';
import * as k8s from '@pulumi/kubernetes';

// Step 1: Create an AKS Cluster
// Create an Azure Resource Group for our cluster
const resourceGroup = new azure.resources.ResourceGroup('myResourceGroup');

// Now let's create the AKS cluster within the resource group.
const cluster = new azure.containerservice.ManagedCluster('myAKSCluster', {
    resourceGroupName: resourceGroup.name,
    agentPoolProfiles: [{
        count: 2,
        vmSize: 'Standard_D2_v2',
        mode: "System",
    }],
    dnsPrefix: 'myk8scluster',
    kubernetesVersion: '1.20.7',
    identity: {
        type: "SystemAssigned",
    },
});

// Export the kubeconfig
export const kubeconfig = pulumi.
    all([cluster.name, resourceGroup.name]).
    apply(([clusterName, rgName]) => {
        return azure.containerservice.
            listManagedClusterUserCredentials({
                resourceGroupName: rgName,
                resourceName: clusterName,
            });
    }).
    apply(creds => Buffer.
        from(creds.kubeconfigs[0].value, 'base64').toString());

// Step 2: Configure Kubernetes Provider
// It's a required step to interact with the created AKS cluster.
// We will use the generated kubeconfig from the AKS cluster to configure our Kubernetes provider instance.
const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider('k8sProvider', {
    kubeconfig: kubeconfig,
});

// Step 3: Deploy the Zinc Helm Chart to AKS
// We'll deploy the Zinc Helm chart from its Helm repository.
const chart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart('zinc', {
    // Replace with the actual repository URL and chart name
    repo: 'zinc-repo',
    chart: 'zinc',
    version: '1.0.0', // Specify the chart version
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Export the frontend IP of the Zinc deployment
// Assuming Zinc exposes a frontend service. Modify as needed.
export const frontendIP = chart.getResourceProperty('v1/Service', 'zinc-frontend', 'status').apply(status => status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip);

```

### What we've done in the above code:

- Defined a new resource group for our AKS cluster using `azure.resources.ResourceGroup`.
- Created an AKS cluster with `azure.containerservice.ManagedCluster` specifying the necessary properties like `agentPoolProfiles`, `dnsPrefix`, and `kubernetesVersion`. We're using system-assigned managed identity for the cluster's identity.
- Exported the `kubeconfig` of the AKS cluster which is required to interact with it using Pulumi's Kubernetes provider.
- Initialized the Kubernetes provider using the generated `kubeconfig`, which allows us to deploy and manage Kubernetes resources on AKS.
- Deployed the Zinc Helm chart to the AKS cluster using `k8s.helm.v3.Chart` resource, specifying the chart name, repository, and version. The `provider` option specifies which Kubernetes provider should be used, in this case, the one we set up to interact with AKS.
- Finally, we attempted to export an IP of the frontend service that Zinc would expose, which users can hit to access the deployment.

### Before running this code
- Ensure Azure CLI is installed and you have logged in using `az login`.
- You need to have Pulumi CLI installed and set up to use Azure as the backend.
- You should have Node.js installed to run the TypeScript code.

Run this code with the following Pulumi command which builds the TypeScript code and then performs the deployment:

```sh
pulumi up
```

Please note that specific properties related to the Helm chart like `repo` and `chart` should be replaced with the actual repository URL and chart name of Zinc. Also, the service name and other specifics might need to be altered based on the structure and content of the Zinc Helm chart and the services it provisions.