Spinnaker Application
Overview
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
Create a Spinnaker application
Configure a Spinnaker application
Delete a Spinnaker application
What Is a Spinnaker Application?
An application represents the software application or its component/service which you are going to deploy using Spinnaker and all of its configurations, including the infrastructure that it would get deployed onto. It consists of the following components:
The software application/service that would be deployed
The pipelines that are responsible for processing it
The infrastructure to run the services:
Clusters
Server groups
Firewalls
Load Balancers
Canary configs
While accessing a new Spinnaker instance, you may find some existing applications when you go to the Applications tab.If you install Spinnaker using Kubernetes on an existing cluster, these applications are acquired from the existing infrastructure.
Don't delete or repurpose any of them to use as your own application. We recommend that you create new applications and create your applications pipelines.
Spinnaker can be used for deploying both monolithic and cloud native applications. In the case of cloud native applications, We always recommend that you create a new application for each microservice in cloud native applications. In Spinnaker, there is no specific rule that defines the level at which services can be combined into a single application. However, considering that an application is responsible for all the containers to bake, manage the canary configs, manage infrastructure, and much more, it is always a good idea not to put too much into one application.
An application is the starting point of your interaction with Spinnaker. Only after you've created an application can you create a pipeline for that application, define the target environment on which the application would be deployed (server groups, load balancers, etc.), and modify the application.
Setting Up Spinnaker Application
Create a Spinnaker application
Click on the Applications tab.
Click on the Actions drop-down in the top-right corner and select Create Application.
Provide the application attributes in the New Application dialog box.
Above attributes will appear in the New Application window as below image.
In the above image you can do the following:
Enter the Name of the application in the text box.
Enter the Owner Email in the text box.
Select the Repo Type from the drop-down.
Enter the Description of the application in the text box.
Select the Cloud Providers from the select box.
Select the check boxes to perform the actions respectively. Enter the Instance Port.
Click Create.
Your application has been created successfully. After that, you must complete the configuration before adding infrastructure and pipelines.
Configure a Spinnaker Application
Follow the steps below to begin configuring the application you created:
Click CONFIG in the top-right corner of the screen to configure the application. The application attributes that you specified during the creation process will be displayed at the top.
Click Edit Application Attributes to change the properties of any of these attributes.
Create Pipeline Notifications
You can send notifications after the pipeline activities are completed. Follow the steps outlined below to do so:
Select the Notification which you want to edit and click Add Notification Preferences. Refer to the image below:
The Edit Notification Screen will appear as shown below:
Select a notification method:
Email
SMS
Slack
Provide the type of information:
Email address
Phone number
Select the pipeline event that will trigger this notification:
A pipeline started
A pipeline finished
A pipeline failed
You can add custom text to each event that will be included in the notification. For example, you could write "Congratulations, a pipeline was successfully executed!" for any pipeline complete.
Click Update.
Select a notification and click Remove under the Actions column to delete the pipeline as shown below.
Enable or Disable Application Features
If you don't need any of the application's main features, you can disable them. Existing data is not deleted if you disable them.
Uncheck the checkbox to remove any of the features you don’t need:
Pipelines
Clusters
Load balancers
Firewalls
Add Custom Instance Links
Custom links can also be added to the instance details panel. This will help you to provide shortcuts to information about the instance, such as health, logs, etc.
If the public IP address of the instance is available, it is used to resolve these links. Otherwise, a private IP is used. The default port is 80 and to change the port follow the instructions below:
In the Links, click Add Section.
Enter text for the new Section heading in the text box.
In the Links fields, enter the text that you want to display and the path to the link target. References to these specific instance attributes can also be added. Wrap them in curly braces to accomplish this. For example, use {region}.
Click Add Link to add additional links that you want to display.
Click Add Section to add any additional sections.
Click Save Changes when you’re finished.
Designate a Traffic Guard Cluster
You can also create a traffic guard cluster and designate it to have at least one active instance. When enabled, this traffic guard cluster allows Spinnaker to verify if a user or process is trying to disable, resize, or delete the server group.
Select the Application Tab, and click Config as shown below.
In the Config, click Traffic Guards. Once you click on TRAFFIC GUARD the options will appear as shown below:
Set the following values:
Click Save Changes.
Delete a Spinnaker Application
Delete any server groups in the application. To delete server groups click the Application tab at the top and then select the CLUSTERS from the options on the left. Refer to the image below.
Select the server group which you want to delete. Then click Server Group Actions and select Destroy from the drop-down to delete the server group. Refer to the image below.
In the Applications screen, open the application you want to delete.
Click CONFIG.
Click Delete Application at the bottom of the application screen.
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