IKS Release Model
IKS software follows a continuous-delivery release model that delivers features and maintenance releases. This approach enables Cisco to introduce stable and feature-rich software releases in a reliable and frequent manner that aligns with Kubernetes supported releases.
Intersight Kubernetes Service Release and Support Model:
• The IKS team supports releases from N-1 versions of Kubernetes. The team will not fully support/make available IKS versions older than N-1.
• IKS follows a fix-forward model that requires release upgrades to fix issues. Release patches are not necessary with this model.
• Tenant images are versioned according to which version of Kubernetes they contain.
Deploy Kubernetes from Intersight
The Intersight policies allow simplified deployments, as they abstract the configuration into reusable templates. The following sections outline the steps involved in deploying Kubernetes from Intersight.
Step 1: Configure Policies
All policies are created under the Configure > Polices & Configure > Pools section on Intersight. You can see the path of the policy at the top of each of the following figures.
1. The IP Pool will be used for IP addresses on your Control and Worker nodes virtual machines, when launched on the ESXi host. Figure 5-15 illustrates the IPv4 Pool details for policy configuration.
Figure 5-15 IPv4 Pool details for policy configuration
2. The Pod and Services Network CIDR is defined for internal networking within the Kubernetes cluster. Figure 5-16 illustrates the CIDR network to be used for the pods and services.
Figure 5-16 CIDR network to be used for the pods and services
3. The DNS and NTP configuration policy defines your NTP and DNS configuration (see Figure 5-17).
Figure 5-17 DNS and NTP configuration policy
4. You can define the proxy configuration policy for your Docker container runtime. Figure 5-18 illustrates this policy.
Figure 5-18 Policy for configuring a proxy for Docker
5. In the master and worker node VM policy, you define the configuration needed on the virtual machines deployed as Master and Worker nodes (see Figure 5-19).
Figure 5-19 Master and worker node VM policy