January 2025 Summaries

Helm's flexibility is invaluable for deploying applications in self-hosted environments, but its complexity can be challenging without experience. Diamon Wiggins, a Staff Engineer at Replicated, outlines best practices for Helm charts to assist Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) in deploying software into self-hosted customer environments. These practices include adding labels and annotations to integrate with Kubernetes tools, allowing configuration of image properties for registry adjustments, and making the security context adaptable to different cluster policies. Additionally, configuring scheduling and node affinity ensures applications run on appropriate nodes, while configurable Kubernetes services and ingress settings allow users to adjust service types and secure access. Lastly, referencing existing Kubernetes objects accommodates organizations with established infrastructure, aiding seamless integration in environments with stringent policies.

Deploying Kubernetes applications to varied customer environments poses significant challenges, but Replicated's Embedded Cluster aims to simplify this process by integrating Kubernetes management into the application deployment workflow. This solution allows software vendors to deliver Kubernetes-based applications without requiring in-depth Kubernetes expertise from customers, by offering features like guided installations, comprehensive preflight checks, and a user-friendly admin console. Embedded Cluster supports flexible configurations and is suitable for production-grade deployments, ensuring that both software vendors and their customers can focus on the business value of the software rather than the complexities of deployment. Replicated's tool minimizes operational challenges and enhances customer satisfaction by making Kubernetes a transparent part of the deployment process.

The Replicated SDK has been released for general availability, providing a Helm chart that functions as a service alongside applications to enhance their functionality and improve the end-customer experience. By integrating the SDK, applications can access features such as automatic operational telemetry for insights into customer environments, including air-gapped deployments, and the ability to embed key Replicated features like instance tagging, custom metrics collection, real-time customer license management, and upgrade alerts. The SDK is designed for easy integration, compatible with both Helm-based applications and Kubernetes manifests, ensuring seamless deployment across different environments. Replicated encourages all vendors to include the SDK in their applications to leverage its critical functionalities and improve installation reliability, with support available for integration assistance.

Replicated's January 2025 release introduces several updates across its Compatibility Matrix, Vendor Portal, and product documentation. Vendors can now programmatically retrieve their remaining Compatibility Matrix credit balance via the Vendor API, and support for Kubernetes 1.32 on Kind clusters has been added. The Compatibility Matrix Tunnels feature is now generally available, allowing traffic tunneling into NodePort services for VM-based clusters. In the Vendor Portal, vendors can set initial values for built-in customer fields and download support bundles with descriptive names. Additionally, improved CLI performance facilitates quicker customer inspections, and new annotations for Kubernetes manifests enable Helm installations. The Vendor API now supports "paid" as a license type when creating customers. Product documentation enhancements include a reorganized sidebar for better navigation, steps for port forwarding the SDK API service, and required firewall openings for online Helm installations.