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Dynamic Cluster Management and Failover

ClusterSet and Set

Sveltos offers two resources, ClusterSet and Set, to manage groups of clusters and dynamically select a subset of those clusters for deployments based on specific criteria. This enables automated deployments and failover across healthy clusters in your environment.

Key Capabilities

  1. Selection: Choose clusters using a defined clusterSelector (e.g., label matching).
  2. Capping: Limit the number of selected clusters with maxReplicas.
  3. Failover: If a selected cluster becomes unavailable, Sveltos automatically picks another healthy one from the matching pool to maintain the desired number of active clusters (up to the maxReplicas limit).

Referencing ClusterSet/Set in a ClusterProfile/Profile

A ClusterProfile or Profile can reference a ClusterSet or Set by specifying its name. The add-ons defined in the profile will only be deployed to the currently selected clusters within the referenced set.

The add-ons defined in the ClusterProfile/Profile will be deployed only to the currently selected clusters within the referenced ClusterSet/Set. This enables dynamic deployment management based on the available and healthy clusters in the set.

This feature is particularly useful for scenarios where you want to implement active/passive failover: create a ClusterSet/Set with maxReplicas: 1 and have it match two clusters in the clusterSelector. This ensures only one cluster is active at a time. If the active cluster goes down, the backup cluster will be automatically selected for deployments.

Active/Passive Failover Example

This scenario demonstrates active/passive failover with a ClusterSet.

Cluster Failover

Register Clusters:

We have two Civo clusters registered with Sveltos, all labeled env:prod.

kubectl get sveltoscluster -A --show-labels
NAMESPACE  NAME    READY  VERSION    LABELS
civo    cluster1  true  v1.29.2+k3s1  env=prod
civo    cluster2  true  v1.28.7+k3s1  env=prod

Create a ClusterSet

A ClusterSet named prod is created with clusterSelector: env=prod to match all prod clusters and maxReplicas: 1 to ensure only one cluster is active at a time.

apiVersion: lib.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ClusterSet
metadata:
  name: prod
spec:
  clusterSelector: env=prod
  maxReplicas: 1

Sveltos Detects Matching Clusters

Sveltos identifies both clusters as matches (status.matchingClusterRefs) and selects one (e.g., cluster2) as the active cluster (status.selectedClusterRefs).

apiVersion: lib.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ClusterSet
metadata:
  name: prod
spec:
  clusterSelector: env=prod
  maxReplicas: 1
status:
  matchingClusterRefs:
  - apiVersion: lib.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
    kind: SveltosCluster
    name: cluster1
    namespace: civo
  - apiVersion: lib.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
    kind: SveltosCluster
    name: cluster2
    namespace: civo
   namespace: civo
  selectedClusterRefs:
  - apiVersion: lib.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
    kind: SveltosCluster
    name: cluster2
    namespace: civo

Deploy a ClusterProfile

A ClusterProfile named kyverno is deployed referencing the prod ClusterSet.

apiVersion: config.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ClusterProfile
metadata:
  name: kyverno
spec:
  helmCharts:
  - chartName: kyverno/kyverno
    chartVersion: v3.0.1
    helmChartAction: Install
    releaseName: kyverno-latest
    releaseNamespace: kyverno
    repositoryName: kyverno
    repositoryURL: https://kyverno.github.io/kyverno/
  setRefs:
  - prod # name of the ClusterSet

Sveltos Deploys Kyverno

Sveltos deploys the Kyverno charts specified in the ClusterProfile onto the cluster selected by the ClusterSet (e.g., civo/cluster3).

apiVersion: config.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ClusterProfile
metadata:
  name: kyverno
spec:
  helmCharts:
  - chartName: kyverno/kyverno
    chartVersion: v3.0.1
    helmChartAction: Install
    releaseName: kyverno-latest
    releaseNamespace: kyverno
    repositoryName: kyverno
    repositoryURL: https://kyverno.github.io/kyverno/
  setRefs:
  - prod
status:
  matchingClusters:
  - apiVersion: lib.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
    kind: SveltosCluster
    name: cluster2
    namespace: civo

sveltosctl show addons  
+---------------+---------------+-----------+----------------+---------+-------------------------------+------------------------+
|    CLUSTER    | RESOURCE TYPE | NAMESPACE |      NAME      | VERSION |             TIME              |        PROFILES        |
+---------------+---------------+-----------+----------------+---------+-------------------------------+------------------------+
| civo/cluster2 | helm chart    | kyverno   | kyverno-latest | 3.0.1   | 2024-03-13 10:19:06 +0100 CET | ClusterProfile/kyverno |
+---------------+---------------+-----------+----------------+---------+-------------------------------+------------------------+

Selected Cluster Becomes Unhealthy

If the cluster selected by ClusterSet instance becomes unhealthy, Sveltos detects that and ClusterSet selects another healthy cluster out of the matching ones.

In this example, cluster2 was deleted.

Sveltos detected that and marked the cluster as not ready

kubectl get sveltoscluster -A
NAMESPACE NAME   READY VERSION
civo    cluster1 true  v1.29.2+k3s1
civo    cluster2       v1.28.7+k3s1

ClusterSet Selects New Cluster

The ClusterSet automatically picks another healthy cluster from the matching ones (e.g., cluster1) as the new active cluster.

apiVersion: lib.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ClusterSet
metadata:
  name: prod
spec:
  clusterSelector: env=prod
  maxReplicas: 1
status:
  matchingClusterRefs:
  - apiVersion: lib.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
    kind: SveltosCluster
    name: cluster1
    namespace: civo
  selectedClusterRefs:
  - apiVersion: lib.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
    kind: SveltosCluster
    name: cluster1
    namespace: civo

ClusterProfile Re-deploys Add-ons

The ClusterProfile reacts to the change and re-deploys its add-ons (Kyverno in this case) to the newly selected cluster (civo/cluster1).

apiVersion: config.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ClusterProfile
metadata:
  name: kyverno
spec:
  helmCharts:
  - chartName: kyverno/kyverno
    chartVersion: v3.0.1
    helmChartAction: Install
    releaseName: kyverno-latest
    releaseNamespace: kyverno
    repositoryName: kyverno
    repositoryURL: https://kyverno.github.io/kyverno/
  setRefs:
  - prod
status:
  matchingClusters:
  - apiVersion: lib.projectsveltos.io/v1alpha1
    kind: SveltosCluster
    name: cluster1
    namespace: civo

sveltosctl show addons  
+---------------+---------------+-----------+----------------+---------+-------------------------------+------------------------+
|    CLUSTER    | RESOURCE TYPE | NAMESPACE |      NAME      | VERSION |             TIME              |        PROFILES        |
+---------------+---------------+-----------+----------------+---------+-------------------------------+------------------------+
| civo/cluster1 | helm chart    | kyverno   | kyverno-latest | 3.0.1   | 2024-03-13 10:27:46 +0100 CET | ClusterProfile/kyverno |
+---------------+---------------+-----------+----------------+---------+-------------------------------+------------------------+

Summary

ClusterSet and Set in Sveltos provide a powerful mechanism for managing cluster deployments and enabling automated failover for high availability in your applications.