Managing your clusters

Learn how to create, import, and manage clusters across cloud providers by using both Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes and IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management. You can use a mix of the console and the CLI for both solutions.

With the IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management console and CLI tools, you can view information about your clusters, add or change cluster labels, and view metering usage data.

If you need cluster management capabilities for managing multiple clusters, you need an integration with Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes. By default without this integration, IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management capabilities manage only your hub cluster.

With the IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management console and CLI tools, you can view information about your hub cluster.

With Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes, you can create, import, scale, and delete extra managed clusters. You can use the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes console, CLI tools, and cluster API to create and manage clusters. For more information about the cluster management capabilities within Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes, see Managing clusters with Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management .

For more information on the integration between Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes for Kubernetes and IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management, see Supported Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management version.

The cluster API is a Kubernetes core-based API that is used to create, configure, and manage clusters with CRD and controller requirements. For more information about the API and API community, see the Kubernetes Cluster API .

For more information on the integration between Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes and IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management, see Supported Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management version.

• Multicluster architecture and terminology
• Console
• Common tasks
• Multicluster commands
• Troubleshooting

Multicluster architecture and terminology

IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management consists of several multicluster components, which are used to access and manage your clusters. Learn more about the following components for IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management:

• Hub cluster
• Managed cluster
• Application resources
• Governance and risk

Hub cluster

The hub cluster is the common term that is used to define the central controller that runs in an IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management cluster.

The hub cluster aggregates information from multiple clusters by using an asynchronous work request model. With a graph database, the hub cluster maintains the state of clusters and applications that run on it. The hub cluster also uses etcd, a distributed key value store, to store the state of work requests and results from multiple clusters and provides a set of REST APIs for the various functions that it supports.

Managed cluster

The managed cluster is used to refer to a single Kubernetes cluster that is connected to the hub cluster. The managed cluster initiates a connection to the hub cluster, receives work requests, applies work requests, then returns the results. The managed cluster connects to various services within the cluster for operations, including the Kubernetes API service, the Tiller service (Helm).

Application and hybrid application resources

After you configure a hub cluster and a managed cluster, you can create, deploy, and view applications and hybrid applications.

• You can use IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management console to create hybrid applications and resources. Hybrid applications are created and managed within only IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management. For more information about hybrid applications management, see Managing hybrid applications.

• You can integrate with Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management to create and manage pure Kubernetes based applications and resources.

Governance and risk

After you configure an IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management hub cluster and a managed cluster, you can manage and view security risks and policies with a combination of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management and IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management functionality. The governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) capabilities include policies, profiles, and compliance validation. These capabilities blend together data and management tools to formulate the Governance and risk dashboard.

For more information, Governance and risk.

Console

The console is the UI for accessing IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management dashboards and functionality. You can use the console to view and manager resources and launch other tools for managing resources, such as Grafana, and Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes.

From this console, you can access the Automate infrastructure > Clusters page to view the following information about your available clusters and complete the following tasks:

• Add a cluster
• Find a cluster
• Click a cluster name to view Overview and Nodes details for the cluster.
  • The Overview page shows Highlights, including total number of nodes, and number that is active and inactive. This section also shows associated applications, the number of policy violations, and the number of security findings. The Overview page also includes a Summary section that lists cluster details, such as the Cluster ID, status, the cluster namespace, and cluster labels. You can also launch the Public service endpoint URL to open the Overview page for the cluster in the OpenShift dashboard to manage the cluster.
  • The Nodes page lists the available cluster nodes by name, and any associated role, zones, and size.
• Expand the Options menu to Launch to cluster and to edit cluster labels. You can also select to Find cluster to open the Search page to show associated information and components for the cluster, such as secrets, namespaces, configmaps, deployments, pods, and more.

Multicluster commands

Learn about the commands that you can run to access your managed clusters.

• Deploy an application. Run the following command on the hub cluster:

  oc deploy -f application.yaml
  

  Note: To deploy an application on a remote cluster, you must create a proper application yaml file that satisfies application model. The model is based on subscribing to one or more Kubernetes resource repositories (channel resources) that contain resources that are deployed on managed clusters. For more information about the application model, see application model and definitions.

• Before you run the following commands, make sure that you log in to the managed cluster.

  1. On the hub cluster, run the following command to log in to the managed cluster:

     oc login <cluster>
     

  2. Run the following commands based on your needs.

     • Apply a configuration to a resource.

       oc apply
       

     • Create a resource.

       oc create
       

     • Delete resources.

       oc delete
       

     • Show details of a specific resource or group of resources.

       oc describe
       

     • Edit a resource from the default editor.

       oc edit
       

     • Display one or many resources.

       oc get
       

     • Print the logs for a container in a pod.

       oc logs
       

     • Update the labels on a resource

       oc label
       

       Note: You can replace oc with kubectl in all commands.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any issues related to cluster management, review the lists of known issues and commonly encountered problems.

• To view the list of known issues, see Known issues.

• To view the commonly encountered problems to help you troubleshoot any problems that you encounter, see:

  • Troubleshooting (Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management)

  • Troubleshooting cluster management (IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management).

  For any issues that you encounter regarding creating or importing a cluster, review the Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management documentation.

• Managing cluster labels

• Cluster monitoring (IBM Cloud Pak foundational services version 3.5.x)
• Cluster monitoring (IBM Cloud Pak foundational services version 3.6.x)
• Metering service