Multi-Zone Cluster, LoadBalancer with In-Zone Backends Only

Deployment Patterns #3: Multi-Zone Cluster, App exposed via LoadBalancer Using In-Zone Backends Only

In my previous post, “IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service: Deployment Patterns for Maximizing Throughput and Availability,” I briefly described a few cluster deployment patterns that should be considered when you are looking to deploy IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service clusters. When choosing the right pattern, you must consider the requirements of the application you are running (including scale), the SLA target, and the budget.

Example deployment pattern

Let’s go through the steps to deploy an example application with the following deployment pattern below:

Steps

1. Sign up and create a multi-zone IKS cluster using the IBM Cloud Console. Consult the documentation on deploying a cluster and specifically how multi-zone clusters work. Important: You have to use the paid tier.

2. Download and apply the the following example Deployment and Service resource yaml, which will expose the echoserver application via the LoadBalancer service on port 1884 in three availability zones you specify in the yaml.$ kubectl apply -f iks_multi-zone_cluster_app_via_LoadBalancer_using_local_endpoints_only.yaml Note: Do not forget to edit the lines marked with NEED TO EDIT!

3. Check the IP address of the LoadBalancer service:

Test the app

1. To test, load the IP:port you specified in your browser or initiate curlcommands (like my example):$ curl http://{your IP here}:1884/

2. You should see a response like this (run it for each LoadBalancerIP address):

You can see the source IP address in the client_address field because we applied the externalTrafficPolicy: Local in the LoadBalancer Service resource.

Finding the right pattern

As you learn more about your workload, you can adjust and even switch between patterns as needed. Different applications will require different patterns; please let us help you decide which is right!

You can learn more about the various deployment patterns in the following posts:

• IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service: Deployment Patterns for Maximizing Throughput and Availability

• IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service Deployment Patterns #1: Single-Zone Cluster

• IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service Deployment Patterns #2: Multi-Zone Cluster—ALB/Ingress Controller

• IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service Deployment Patterns #4: Multi-Zone Cluster, LoadBalancer Aggregating Whole Region Capacity

Contact us

If you have questions, engage our team via Slack by registering here and joining the discussion in the #general channel on our public IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service Slack.