EDA installation overview#

This chapter describes the Nokia Event Driven Automation (EDA) components, the requirements for these components, and provides an overview of the installation process.

Components#

Several key concepts are used throughout the documentation; following is an overview of these concepts and components:

Talos Linux and Kubernetes

EDA uses Talos Linux and Kubernetes to host its services. Talos Linux is a minimalistic, locked-down, read-only and secured Linux environment purposely built to run Kubernetes. This ensures a more secure environment with significantly lower security footprint than regular Linux and Kubernetes environments.

Playground git repository

The Playground git repository is publicly available and is used to deploy EDA itself.

edaadm

A tool that will be used for several steps in the process:

• Get the location to download the base Talos image for KVM and VMware environments.
• Generate Talos machine configuration files for the deployment of both the Assets VM and the EDA Kubernetes cluster VMs.
• Initiate Talos Kubernetes clusters.

edaadm git repository

A publicly available git repository that contains details and definitions for:

• Assets bundles for air-gapped installations: EDA Assets are defined in different bundles, based on their purpose. The repository provides the bundles and the means to download the content of the bundles from the internet and then upload them to the deployed Assets VM.
• A KPT package to initiate the Assets VM.

Air-gapped Assets VM

Used in an air-gapped environment, the Assets VM is a Virtual Machine deployed on a KVM or VMware environment. It is a single VM K8s cluster that will run:

• A container registry to host all the container images used by EDA.
• A git server to host the App Store Catalog.
• A web server to host certain artifacts used by EDA.

Air-gapped Bundles

Used in air-gapped installations, a bundle is a definition of a group of assets that are related. For instance a bundle for the core components of EDA for a specific version, or a bundle of the standard Apps for a specific version. Bundles are downloaded using the edaadm tool from the internet, and then uploaded using edaadm to the Assets VM. The product comes with a set of standard bundles and custom bundles can be created based on their examples.

Air-gapped EDA Shipyard

A name used to describe the combination of the container registry, git server and web server running on the Assets VM.

Deployment models#

Nokia EDA is deployed as an application on one, three, or more nodes (validated for up to six nodes). The nodes (VMs) run a Kubernetes cluster with the following composition:

• One or three Kubernetes master nodes that also function as worker nodes: one, in case a single-VM deployment is used; otherwise three Kubernetes master nodes.
• Any remaining nodes (in a four or more node deployment) function as worker nodes.
• One, two or more nodes must also be designated as storage nodes. For redundancy, two is the minimum in a three or more node deployment. These nodes still function as worker (and potentially master) nodes as well. Rook-Ceph is used to create a storage cluster across the nodes indicated as storage nodes.
• (Optional) An Assets VM which will hold all the resources and files needed in case of an air-gapped environment.

Networking for EDA nodes#

This guide describes the deployment of EDA on a Kubernetes cluster with a single network, where access from both users and orchestrators to the UI and API, and access from EDA to the fabric (for example, SR Linux devices) go over the same interface.

It is possible to use two separate networks for the EDA nodes:

• OAM network
  This interface is used to access the UI and the API of Nokia EDA. It is also through this network that the deployment tool reaches the nodes.

• Fabric management network
  This interface is used to communicate with the management interfaces of the fabric (for example, SR Linux devices) and is where Nokia EDA exposes its DHCP and ZTP services.

EDA nodes#

The Nokia EDA nodes are the VMware vSphere-based or KVM-based virtual machines (VMs) that host the Kubernetes environment on which the Nokia EDA application and Digital Sandbox are run.

These nodes run a hardened Talos Kubernetes environment. Talos is a secure, up-to-date and hardened platform for running Kubernetes.

EDA supports the following deployment models:

• an environment with one node, which hosts only the Nokia EDA application for small scale deployments
• an environment with three or more nodes, which hosts only the Nokia EDA application

Requirements for deployment#

This section describes the platform requirements, node requirements, and virtual IP requirements for deploying EDA.

Installation platform requirements#

To execute the installation process, you need access to a Linux environment¹ with the following components installed:

Nokia EDA node requirements#

The Nokia EDA nodes are deployed as virtual machine servers. Node requirements summarizes the requirements of Nokia EDA nodes in KVM and VMware hypervisor.

Nokia EDA Assets VM requirements#

The Assets VM runs as a single VM inside the air-gapped environment. This VM holds all of the assets and can be used across multiple deployments and EDA versions, containing the assets for multiple versions. This VM has the following requirements:

Virtual IP requirements#

The deployment of EDA requires two virtual IP addresses in the management network:

• Kubernetes VIP: the virtual IP address used by all the control plane nodes in the Kubernetes cluster.
• Nokia EDA API/UI VIP: the virtual IP address used by the Nokia EDA API and UI.

Installation process overview#

The installation consists of the following high-level tasks:

General preparation#

These tasks must be completed for both Internet based installations and Air-gapped installations.

Air-gapped setup#

In case the installation will be Air-gapped, this section provides steps on how to set up the Assets VM and load it with the necessary assets for deploying EDA in an Air-gapped environment.

Deploying EDA#