To use Alibaba Cloud Service Mesh (ASM), you must create an ASM instance. This topic describes how to create an ASM instance in the ASM console.

Prerequisites

Background information

Note When you create an ASM instance, ASM may perform the following operations based on your settings:
  • Creates a security group that allows access to a virtual private cloud (VPC) over Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP).
  • Adds route entries to the VPC.
  • Creates an elastic IP address (EIP).
  • Creates a RAM role with attached policies that grant all permissions on Server Load Balancer (SLB), CloudMonitor, VPC, and Log Service. ASM dynamically creates SLB instances and adds route entries to the VPC based on your settings.
  • Creates an SLB instance in the VPC and exposes port 6443.
  • Creates an SLB instance in the VPC and exposes port 15011.
  • Collects the logs of the managed components to ensure stability.

Procedure

  1. Log on to the ASM console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Service Mesh > Mesh Management.
  3. On the Mesh Management page, click Create ASM Instance.
  4. On the Create Service Mesh page, set the parameters as required.
    1. The following table describes the basic settings for an ASM instance.
      Parameter Description
      Service mesh name The name of the ASM instance.
      Spec The instance type of the ASM instance. Valid values: Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, and Ultimate Edition. For more information about the features of each edition, see the "Instance types" section of the Instance types topic.
      Region The region in which the ASM instance resides.
      Payment type
      The billing method of the ASM instance. Valid values: Pay as you go and Subscription. If you set this parameter to Subscription, you must set the following parameters:
      Note If you set the Payment type parameter to Subscription, only the internal-facing SLB instances of the Istio control plane and API server are billed in subscription mode. The EIP instances of the ASM instance and API server are still billed in pay-as-you-go mode.
      • Purchase time: the subscription period. Valid values: 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, and 3 years.
      • Automatic renewal: specifies whether to enable auto-renewal.
      Istio Version The Istio version.
      VPC The VPC of the ASM instance. You can click Create VPC to create a VPC. For more information, see Create and manage a VPC.
      vSwitch The vSwitch of the ASM instance. You can click Create vSwitch to create a vSwitch. For more information, see Work with vSwitches.
      Istio control plane access The type of the SLB instance used to access the Istio control plane.
      API Server access The type of the SLB instance used to access the API server. You can specify whether to enable access to the API server by using an EIP.
      • If you select Use EIP to expose API Server, an EIP is created and bound to an SLB instance in the VPC. You can use the kubeconfig file to connect to and manage the ASM instance over the Internet.
      • If you clear Use EIP to expose API Server, no EIP is created. You can use the kubeconfig file to connect to and manage the ASM instance only in the VPC.
      Observability Specifies whether to enable Tracing Analysis for the ASM instance.

      ASM integrates with Tracing Analysis. Tracing Analysis provides a wide range of tools to help you efficiently identify the performance bottlenecks of distributed applications. You can use these tools to map traces, display trace topologies, analyze application dependencies, and calculate the number of requests. This helps you improve the efficiency of developing and troubleshooting distributed applications. For more information about Tracing Analysis, see Use Tracing Analysis to trace applications inside and outside an ASM instance.

      Note Before you enable Tracing Analysis, make sure that you have activated Tracing Analysis in the Tracing Analysis console.
      Specifies whether to enable Prometheus Service (Prometheus) for the ASM instance.

      For more information about Prometheus, see Monitor service meshes based on ARMS Prometheus and Deploy a self-managed Prometheus instance to monitor ASM instances.

      Specifies whether to enable Kiali for ASM.

      Kiali for ASM is a tool that is used to observe ASM instances. This tool provides a GUI that allows you to view related services and configurations. Kiali for ASM is a built-in tool for ASM instances whose Istio version is 1.7.5.25 or later. For more information, see Enable Kiali for ASM to observe an ASM instance in the ASM console.

      Specifies whether to integrate self-managed SkyWalking to improve observability. ASM integrates with SkyWalking. You can use SkyWalking to view the metrics of applications.

      For more information about the SkyWalking, see Integrate self-managed SkyWalking to observe ASM instances.

      Specifies whether to enable collection of access logs. You can use Log Service to view the access logs of ingress gateway services.

      For more information about access logs, see Use Log Service to collect logs of ingress gateways on the data plane and Use Log Service to collect access logs of the data plane.

      Specifies whether to enable collection of control plane logs.

      ASM supports control plane alerting and allows you to collect the logs of the control plane. For example, you can collect logs related to configuration pushing from the control plane to the sidecar proxies on the data plane. For more information, see Enable collection of control plane logs and control plane alerting.

      Mesh Audit Specifies whether to enable the mesh audit feature.

      You can enable the mesh audit feature to record and trace the operations of users. This is an important feature that ensures secure cluster O&M.

      For more information about the mesh audit feature, see Use the KubeAPI operation audit feature in ASM.

      Resource configuration Specifies whether to enable Istio custom resource version control.

      When you update fields in the spec block of an Istio resource, ASM records the resource version before the update. ASM stores up to five latest versions. For more information about how to roll back an Istio resource to a previous version, see Roll back an Istio resource to an earlier version.

      Specifies whether to allow the Kubernetes API of clusters on the data plane to access Istio resources.

      ASM allows you to create, delete, modify, and query Istio resources by using the Kubernetes API of clusters on the data plane. For more information, see Use the Kubernetes API of clusters on the data plane to access Istio resources.

      Cluster Domain The cluster domain for the ASM instance. Default value: cluster.local. You can add only Kubernetes clusters that share the same cluster domain with the ASM instance to the ASM instance.
      Note You can set this parameter only if the Istio version of the ASM instance is 1.6.4.5 or later. Otherwise, this parameter is hidden.
  5. Activate ASM in pay-as-you-go mode.

    If you create an ASM instance of a commercial edition for the first time, the value in the State column on the right of Dependency Check is Not pass. In this case, you must activate ASM in pay-as-you-go mode.

    Click Activate now in the Illustrate column on the right of Dependency Check. On the page that appears, select ASM (Pay-as-you-go) Terms of Service and click Activate Now.

  6. Select I have understood and accepted the Service Agreement and have read and agreed Alibaba Cloud Service Mesh ASM Service Level Agreement.
  7. Click Create Service Mesh.
    Note It takes about 2 to 3 minutes to create an ASM instance.

Result

After the ASM instance is created, you can view the following information about the instance:
  • On the Mesh Management page, you can view the basic information about the ASM instance.

    To view the latest information about the ASM instance, click the Refresh icon on the right.

  • On the Mesh Management page, find the ASM instance that you want to view logs and click Log in the Actions column. In the ASM Instance Logs panel, you can view the logs of the ASM instance.
  • On the Mesh Management page, find the instance whose instance type you want to update and click Specification change in the Actions column. For more information, see Update the instance type of an ASM instance.
  • On the Mesh Management page, find the ASM instance that you want to view basic information and click Manage in the Actions column. On the Basic Information page, you can view the basic information of the instance, such as the instance ID and the security group. By default, the following Istio resources are created for a new ASM instance:
    • A namespace: default.
      Note By default, the system creates five namespaces for a new ASM instance, but only the namespace that is named default appears in the console. You can use the kubectl client to query and manage the other four namespaces, which are istio-system, kube-node-lease, kube-public, and kube-system.
    • Two destination rules: API-Server and default. For more information about the API-Server rule, visit the official website of Istio. The default rule defines the permissive Mutual Transport Layer Security (mTLS) policy for the ASM instance.