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

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Deploying the IBM App Connect Enterprise (ACE) operator helm chart on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) involves setting up a Kubernetes cluster on GKE and then using Pulumi to deploy the IBM ACE operator into it. Below is a step-by-step guide and Pulumi TypeScript program that achieves this.

### Prerequisites
Before running the Pulumi program, make sure you have the following prerequisites set up:

1. **Pulumi**: Install [Pulumi](https://www.pulumi.com/docs/get-started/install/).
2. **Google Cloud Account**: Have access to a Google Cloud account with the necessary permissions to create and manage GKE clusters.
3. **Google Cloud SDK**: Install the [Google Cloud SDK](https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install) and configure it with credentials to access your GCP account.
4. **Helm**: The IBM ACE operator is available as a Helm chart, so you'll need [Helm](https://helm.sh/docs/intro/install/) installed on your machine to manage the deployment.

### Detailed Explanation
Here's what we will be doing in the Pulumi TypeScript program:
1. Import necessary packages and create a configuration object for GKE.
2. Create a new GKE cluster using the `gcp.container.Cluster` resource.
3. Once the GKE cluster is provisioned, set up the Kubernetes provider pointing to the created cluster.
4. Deploy the IBM ACE operator using the `kubernetes.helm.v3.Chart` resource and configure it with the appropriate settings.

### Pulumi Program
Now, we'll write a TypeScript program to deploy the IBM ACE Operator on GKE.

```typescript
import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";
import * as gcp from "@pulumi/gcp";
import * as k8s from "@pulumi/kubernetes";

// Step 1: Create a new GKE cluster
const cluster = new gcp.container.Cluster("ibm-ace-operator-cluster", {
    initialNodeCount: 3,
    minMasterVersion: "latest",
    nodeVersion: "latest",
    location: "us-central1-a", // Choose the right region here
    nodeConfig: {
        machineType: "n1-standard-1", // Choose the right machine type here
        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"
        ],
    },
});

// Step 2: Setup the Kubernetes provider to deploy Helm charts on the cluster
const k8sProvider = new k8s.Provider("k8s-provider", {
    kubeconfig: cluster.kubeConfigRaw,
});

// Step 3: Deploy the IBM ACE Operator Helm chart on the GKE cluster
const aceOperatorChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("ibm-ace-operator-chart", {
    chart: "ibm-ace-operator",
    version: "1.0", // Specify the version of the chart
    fetchOpts: {
        repo: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IBM/charts/master/repo/stable/", // Official IBM Helm repo URL
    },
}, { provider: k8sProvider });

// Export the Cluster name and Kubernetes config
export const clusterName = cluster.name;
export const kubeConfig = cluster.kubeConfigRaw;
```

### How to Run the Program

To run this Pulumi program:
1. Save the above code into a file with a `.ts` extension, for instance, `deploy-ace-operator.ts`.
2. Open a terminal and change directory to where you saved the file.
3. Run `pulumi stack init` to create a new stack if you haven't already done so.
4. Run `pulumi up` to execute the Pulumi program.

This will start the deployment of your GKE cluster and the IBM ACE operator Helm chart. If everything is configured correctly, Pulumi will provision the resources on GCP and print output variables such as the cluster name and kubeconfig.

Note that you will need to authenticate Pulumi with GCP using your credentials, which is typically done by running `gcloud auth application-default login` if you haven't already configured your credentials.