This step-by-step tutorial shows developers how to implement an application-as-code environment to use Kubernetes without needing to become a Kubernetes expert.
Join the DZone community and get the full member experience. Kubernetes offers developers tremendous advantages… if they can overcome the platform’s inherent complexities. It can be a big «if.» Without additional tooling, developers aren’t able to simply develop their applications on Kubernetes, but must also become experts in writing complex YAML templates to define Kubernetes resources. A relatively new tool called Shipa provides an application management framework that largely relieves developers of this burden, enabling dev teams to ship applications with no Kubernetes expertise required. Having recently put the tool to the test, this article will demonstrate how to install and utilize Shipa to simplify Kubernetes and ease some common developer frustrations. While this walk-through example uses Amazon EKS, it’s possible to deploy Shipa on any Kubernetes cluster (including Minikube, EKS, GKE, AKS, RKE, OKE, and on-prem). To follow along with this example using your own cluster, first read the Shipa installation requirements, and download the Helm command-line tool which we’ll use to install Shipa on Kubernetes. To install Shipa, first add Shipa’s Helm repository. Next, deploy Shipa via Helm. Make sure to set your adminUser and adminPassword. To observe the Shipa deployment, list all pods in the shipa and shipa-system namespaces: Run shipa version to check that the Shipa installation was successful. In this article’s example, we’ll use version 1.6.3. To enable interactions with Shipa via the CLI, configure a target so that the CLI can locate Shipa in the Kubernetes cluster. First, find the IP address (or DNS name) of Shipa’s Nginx server by running: This code finds the DNS name of the elastic load balancer (if on AWS) that serves traffic to the Nginx server, which then goes to Shipa. The output of the shipa target add command will look like this: Then finally login to the CLI. Following a few moments of preparation, the Shipa dashboard will be accessible. Paste the Shipa target address into your browser (ex: https://XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.ap-southeast-1.elb.amazonaws.com) to reach Shipa’s API welcome page: Click the «Go to my Dashboard» link, and log in with your bootstrap credentials.
