Zero to Autopilot

From Zero to Auto Pilot

Exploring Kubernetes Operator Capability Levels

- Operators can be thought of as kubernetes native applications that extend the functionality of kubernetes.
- a pattern in kubernetes that uses custom resources and controllers to manage applications in a cluster
- A controller is a control loop that watches the state of the current cluster and tries to bring it closer to the desired state that's declared in the custom resource - A controller can be though of as a person who is doing things by looking up sticky note/template/image/recipe that we provide(cr) - EX: something happens(event) we install the operator (event) the controller looks up the sticky note (custom resource) and does a something (configures our app)
- operators have different maturity levels and capabilities from basic install to autopilot
- With an autopilot operator being our end goal for all operators - What is an autopilot operator... *transition to the next slide*
- The Operator Framework explains that very will in their capabilities model

Operator Framework

- Operator Framework is an open source toolkit used to manage Operators, in an effective, automated, and scalable way.
- Operators come in different maturity levels so this capability model provides a guide as to what features users can expect from an Operator.
- Currently there are 5 levels of operator capabilities. level 1: basic install, level 2: seamless upgrade, level 3: backup & restore, level 4: deep insights, and level 5: autopilot.
- An autopilot operator can auto-scale, auto-heal, auto-tune, & detect abnormailities(deviations from standard performance and act on it automatically or alert us) - Our goal with the l5-operator is to showcase all the capabilities of an operator all the way until it reaches complete autopilot
- Currently on operatorhub.io 70% of the published operators have level 2 capabilities and only 5% of operators have level 5 capabilities.
- In this presentation we hope to enable our participants to create operators with greater capabilities as well as add more capabilities to existing operators hoping to bring their operators to autopilot as well.

Level 1: Basic Installation level 1 capability

Level 2: Seamless Upgrades level 2 capability

Level 3: Full Lifecycle level 2 capability

Level 4: Deep Insights level 2 capability

Level 5: Auto Pilot level 2 capability

Thank you!
https://github.com/opdev/l5-operator-demo