Deploy the ibm-connect-direct helm chart on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Deploying an IBM Connect Direct Helm chart on an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster involves a few steps. First, we need to provision an AKS cluster where the application will be deployed. Then, we'll configure the Kubernetes environment to deploy the Helm chart onto the AKS cluster. We'll use the `azure-native` package primarily because it provides native Azure resource management using the official Azure Resource Manager APIs, which are more up-to-date and offer finer control.

Before you begin, ensure you have the following prerequisites in place:
- Pulumi CLI installed.
- Azure CLI installed and configured with an active subscription.
- Helm CLI installed for deploying Helm charts.
- An IBM Connect Direct Helm chart available, which you want to deploy to AKS.

### Detailed Steps

1. **Set up an AKS cluster**: Using the `azure-native.hybridcontainerservice.ProvisionedCluster` resource, we create an AKS cluster that will host our application.

2. **Connect to the AKS cluster**: Once the AKS is provisioned, we will need to configure `kubectl` to communicate with the newly created cluster using the command line or Pulumi automation.

3. **Deploy the Helm chart to AKS**: Use the Helm CLI to deploy the IBM Connect Direct Helm chart onto the AKS cluster. The specific command will depend on the Helm chart itself.

Below is the TypeScript program that accomplishes the first step, setting up a Kubernetes cluster on AKS:

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

// Create an Azure Resource Group
const resourceGroup = new azure_native.resources.ResourceGroup('myResourceGroup');

// Create an AKS cluster
const cluster = new azure_native.containerservice.ManagedCluster('myAksCluster', {
    resourceGroupName: resourceGroup.name,
    agentPoolProfiles: [{
        count: 1,
        vmSize: 'Standard_DS2_v2',
        osType: 'Linux',
        mode: 'System',
    }],
    dnsPrefix: 'myakscluster' + pulumi.getStack(),
    enableRBAC: true,
    kubernetesVersion: '1.20.7',
    linuxProfile: {
        adminUsername: 'aksuser',
        ssh: {
            publicKeys: [{
                keyData: 'ssh-rsa ...', // Replace with your SSH public key
            }],
        },
    },
    servicePrincipalProfile: {
        clientId: 'clientId', // Replace with your service principal's client ID
        secret: 'clientSecret', // Replace with your service principal's secret
    },
}, { dependsOn: [resourceGroup] });

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

// After this Pulumi program runs and the AKS cluster is provisioned, you will
// need to do the following to deploy your IBM Connect Direct helm chart:
// 1. Configure kubectl with the exported kubeconfig.
// 2. Use Helm CLI to deploy your helm chart to the AKS cluster. The specific
//    commands will depend on your helm chart but would look something like:
//    `helm install my-ibm-connect-direct ./my-helm-chart-dir -f values.yaml`
```

In this program:
- We create a new resource group to hold our AKS cluster resources.
- We define an AKS cluster with an initial Linux-based node pool, necessary for running the Kubernetes nodes.
- We've specified dummy placeholders for SSH key, service principal ID, and secret. You'll need to replace these with actual values from your environment.

After deploying an AKS cluster with the above script, the next steps would be manual and dependent on the Helm chart specifics, but generally involve:
1. Using the `kubeconfig` output to set up the Kubernetes command-line tool (`kubectl`) for cluster management.
2. Using `helm` command-line tool to deploy the Helm chart.

Please make sure to replace placeholders with actual values before running the code.