This topic describes how to use Alibaba Cloud Distributed Cloud Container Platform (ACK One) and the ACK One documentation.
Prerequisites
ACK One and the relevant Alibaba Cloud services are activated. The service-linked role for ACK One is assigned to ACK One. For more information, see Manage the service-linked role for ACK One.
Quick start guides
The following figure shows how to use ACK One.
How to use ACK One
ACK One supports cluster registration and multi-cluster management, and provides a backup center to help you with data backup and restoration. You can use these capabilities in combination.
Cluster registration
You can register clusters that are deployed in data centers or clusters that are deployed on a third-party cloud to the ACK One. This way, you can create clusters in a hybrid cloud environment and manage clusters in a centralized manner.
| Feature | Description | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Create a cluster registration proxy and register a Kubernetes cluster that is deployed in a data center | This feature allows you to create a cluster registration proxy and use the proxy to register a Kubernetes cluster that is deployed in a data center or on a third-party cloud. This way, you can manage your clusters in ACK One in a centralized manner. | |
| Configure networking | This feature allows you to configure networks for clusters that are deployed in a hybrid cloud environment. | |
| Elasticity | This feature allows you to scale self-managed Kubernetes clusters that are deployed in data centers by adding computing resources that are deployed in the cloud to the clusters. For example, you can manually or set the system to automatically adjust the number of Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances or ECS bare metal instances in self-managed Kubernetes clusters that are deployed in data centers. | |
| Observability | This feature supports the following observability capabilities: Event Center, Ingress dashboards, log collection, application monitoring based on Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS), architecture characteristics discovery based on Application High Availability Service (AHAS), application throttling based on AHAS, Node Problem Detector (NPD), and Metrics Adapter. | |
| Security management | This feature provides authentication based on Resource Access Management (RAM), authorization based on role-based access control (RBAC), cluster auditing based on Log Service, and cluster inspection. | |
| Coordinated scheduling | This feature requires you to install ack-co-scheduler in the registered cluster and allows you to apply the scheduling features of Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) in various types of applications, such as big data applications and AI applications, in a convenient manner and improve resource utilization. | Use ack-co-scheduler to coordinate resource scheduling |
Multi-cluster management
The master instances of ACK One are managed by ACK. This feature allows you to use the master instances to manage Kubernetes clusters that are deployed in different environments in a centralized manner. Master instances create a consistent experience for enterprises that want to manage cloud-native applications.
| Feature | Description | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-cluster management | This feature allows you to use the master instances of ACK One to distribute workloads, applications, and configuration files across multiple clusters. | |
| Associated cluster management | This feature allows you to associate clusters with the master instances of ACK One. This way, you can use the master instances to distribute applications and workloads in a unified manner. | Manage associated clusters |
| GitOps | You can enable GitOps on a master instance of ACK One and use GitOps to manage the versions of Application or Helm templates that are stored in Git repositories. You can also use GitOps to implement continuous deployment for a multi-cluster application based on one orchestration template. | |
| Application distribution | When you distribute applications across clusters, you may encounter the following issues: the kubeconfig file varies by cluster, the application configuration varies by cluster, the deployment topology of applications is not displayed in a unified view, and the security risk is high. To resolve these issues, you can use this feature to distribute applications across clusters. |
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| MCS | The multi-cluster Services (MCS) feature allows you to access Services across Kubernetes clusters without the need to create load balancers. | |
| Workload distribution | This feature allows you to automatically distribute different types of jobs to multiple clusters, such as Jobs and CronJobs. | |
| Proxying | When you distribute applications across clusters, you may encounter the following issues: the kubeconfig file varies by cluster, the application configuration varies by cluster, the deployment topology of applications is not displayed in a unified view, and the security risk is high. To resolve these issues, you can use this feature to distribute applications across clusters. | Use a master instance as a proxy to manage multiple clusters |
| Monitoring | The global monitoring feature collects the metrics of different clusters from Prometheus Monitoring, aggregates these metrics, and then displays global monitoring information about these clusters on a dashboard. This way, you can view the metrics of different clusters on one dashboard. |
Backup center
This feature provides an all-in-one solution for you to back up, restore, and migrate both stateless and stateful applications that are deployed in Kubernetes clusters. This solution meets the data redundancy and migration needs of stateful applications that are deployed across multiple clusters in a hybrid cloud environment.
| Feature | Description | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Backup center | This feature provides an all-in-one solution for you to back up, restore, and migrate both stateless and stateful applications that are deployed in Kubernetes clusters. This solution meets the data redundancy and migration needs of stateful applications that are deployed across multiple clusters in a hybrid cloud environment. | |
| Backup and restoration of applications and data | This feature allows you to back up and restore stateful applications that are deployed in a cluster. This feature provides an all-in-one solution to achieve crash consistency, application consistency, and cross-region disaster recovery for stateful applications that are deployed in Kubernetes clusters. | Back up and restore applications |
| Cross-cluster application migration | This feature allows you to back up and restore stateful applications that are deployed in a cluster. This feature provides an all-in-one solution to achieve crash consistency, application consistency, and cross-region disaster recovery for stateful applications that are deployed in Kubernetes clusters. |