How to deploy microservices in azure kubernetes using ansible and helm?

Question

I need to deploy multiple microservices(payment,order) into different environments(dev,QA).

As per my analysis I hope we achieve this by following steps

1. Create separate clusters for different environments

2. Create multiple variable files based on environments.

we can pass only cluster name and variable file based on our deployment. so it will deploy according to our inputs.

I'm trying to implement the same, but I'm not sure how to configure the above scenarios by using ansible and helm part in real time.

Anyone please advise me on this ?

Reference https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/kubernetes/k8s_module.html

Answer 1

If you are planning to set the CI/CD and use the helm only you can deploy services without ansible.

Helm use the context once your context is set in CI/CD respective service will deploy to that specific environment.

You can just use the helm.

However with ansible

you can write the playbook which will use proper K8s context dev or QA and further ansible will deploy the helm simply.

Example playbook however you can remove the extra part if anything not required in your case

---
- hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  vars:
    helm_namespace: "ansible-helm-jenkins-demo"
    helm_release_name: "ansible-helm-jenkins-demo"
    helm_version: "v3.2.3"
    helm_binary_directory: /tmp/helm
    helm_archive_name: "helm-{{ helm_version }}-{{ ansible_system | lower }}-amd64.tar.gz"
    helm_binary: "{{ helm_binary_directory}}/{{ ansible_system | lower }}-amd64/helm"

  tasks:
    - name: Init Helm folders
      file:
        path: "{{ helm_binary_directory }}"
        state: directory

    - name: Check if Helm Binary Present
      stat:
        path: "{{ helm_binary }}"
      register: helm_binary_present

    - name: Unarchive Helm binary
      unarchive:
        src: "https://get.helm.sh/{{ helm_archive_name }}"
        dest: "{{ helm_binary_directory }}"
        remote_src: yes
      when: not helm_binary_present.stat.exists

    - name: Create Helm Namespace
      community.kubernetes.k8s:
        name: "{{ helm_namespace }}"
        api_version: v1
        kind: Namespace
        state: present

    - name: Deploy Helm Chart
      community.kubernetes.helm:
        name: "{{ helm_release_name }}"
        chart_ref: "{{ playbook_dir }}/../../helm/ansible-helm-jenkins-demo"
        release_namespace: "{{ helm_namespace }}"
        binary_path: "{{ helm_binary }}"
        values: "{{ chart_values | default({}) }}"

Github reference : https://github.com/sabre1041/ansible-helm-jenkins-demo