Deploy the ibm-mq-operator helm chart on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy the "ibm-mq-operator" Helm chart on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), you need to complete a few steps:

1. Set up a GKE cluster.
2. Ensure that `kubectl` is configured to interact with your GKE cluster.
3. Install the Helm client and add the repository that contains the "ibm-mq-operator" chart.
4. Use Helm to deploy the chart to your GKE cluster.

Below is a Pulumi TypeScript program that automates the first step - creating a GKE cluster. After the cluster is created, I'll guide you through the rest of the steps which will be performed manually using `kubectl` and Helm.

This program uses `@pulumi/gcp` to create a GKE cluster:

- `gcp.container.Cluster`: This resource is used to create and manage a GKE cluster where your workloads will run.

Please note that after creating the GKE cluster with Pulumi, the `kubectl` and Helm setup to deploy the Helm chart is typically done outside of Pulumi, using standard command-line tools.

Here's how the Pulumi TypeScript program looks like:

```typescript
import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";
import * as gcp from "@pulumi/gcp";

// Create a GKE cluster
const cluster = new gcp.container.Cluster("my-gke-cluster", {
    initialNodeCount: 2,
    nodeVersion: "latest",
    minMasterVersion: "latest",
    nodeConfig: {
        machineType: "n1-standard-1",
        oauthScopes: [
            "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/compute",
            "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.read_only",
            "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/logging.write",
            "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/monitoring"
        ],
    },
});

// Export the Cluster name
export const clusterName = cluster.name;

// Export the Kubeconfig
export const kubeconfig = pulumi.
    all([cluster.name, cluster.endpoint, cluster.masterAuth]).
    apply(([name, endpoint, masterAuth]) => {
        const context = `${gcp.config.project}_${gcp.config.zone}_${name}`;
        return `apiVersion: v1
clusters:
- cluster:
    certificate-authority-data: ${masterAuth.clusterCaCertificate}
    server: https://${endpoint}
  name: ${context}
contexts:
- context:
    cluster: ${context}
    user: ${context}
  name: ${context}
current-context: ${context}
kind: Config
preferences: {}
users:
- name: ${context}
  user:
    auth-provider:
      config:
        cmd-args: config config-helper --format=json
        cmd-path: gcloud
        expiry-key: '{.credential.token_expiry}'
        token-key: '{.credential.access_token}'
      name: gcp
`;
    });
```

Once you run this Pulumi program, it will provision a GKE cluster which can be used to deploy Kubernetes workloads.

After the cluster is created, you'll need to perform the following steps manually:

1. **Configure `kubectl` with the new cluster**: You can do this by copying the output of the `kubeconfig` variable into a file and set the `KUBECONFIG` environment variable to point to that file, or by using `gcloud` command-line tool to get credentials for your cluster.

2. **Install Helm**: Follow the [Helm installation guide](https://helm.sh/docs/intro/install/) for your operating system.

3. **Add the Helm repository for IBM MQ** (if available): You'll need to find the repository URL for IBM MQ and add it using `helm repo add`. If IBM MQ Operator is not available in a public repository, you may need to contact IBM for access or installation instructions.

4. **Install the Helm chart**: Use the `helm install` command to deploy the chart to your cluster.

Remember to replace the placeholder values with actual values pertaining to the IBM MQ chart.

If you haven't done it before or need help with the manual steps, I recommend checking out the official GKE [Quickstart](https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/docs/quickstart) and Helm [documentation](https://helm.sh/docs/) for detailed instructions.