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Deploying BMC Helix IT Operations Management in an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster

You can deploy BMC Helix IT Operations Management in an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster if you use AKS to manage your Kubernetes platform.

Reference installation architecture

The following image shows the reference logical architecture used by BMC to deploy BMC Helix IT Operations Management in an AKS cluster:

Important

  • BMC provides general guidelines to install BMC Helix IT Operations Management in an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster based on the following reference architecture used by BMC. Although you can choose any alternative architecture or installation options on this platform, BMC does not provide support for alternative options.
  • In this documentation, NGINX Ingress Controller refers to the Open-Source NGINX Ingress Controller maintained by Kubernetes.

 image-2023-8-23_10-33-31-1.png

Before you begin

  • Make sure you have a domain and have configured Domain Name System (DNS) for BMC Helix IT Operations Management so that you can access the applications by using URLs.
  • Make sure that you create a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate for BMC Helix IT Operations Management application URLs to support the HTTPS protocol.
    BMC certifies the use of the LetsEncrypt service to create the wildcard SSL certificate.
  • Review the system requirements for BMC Helix IT Service Management installation.
  • Download the installation files and container images access key from Electronic Product Download (EPD).

Process to install BMC Helix IT Operations Management in an AKS cluster

The following table lists the tasks to install BMC Helix IT Operations Management in an AKS cluster:

TaskActionReference
1Create and set up an AKS cluster 
aCreate an AKS cluster by using the Azure portal.Quickstart: Deploy an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster using the Azure portal in the Azure documentation
bInstall and configure Kubernetes Ingress Nginx Controller.Installing and configuring Kubernetes Ingress Nginx Controller

To know the certified versions Ingress Controller with the Kubernetes and OpenShift orchestration platform see 
/xwiki/wiki/internal/view/IT-Operations-Management/On-Premises-Deployment/itomdeploymaster/Deploying/Preparing-for-deployment/Deploying-and-configuring-the-NGINX-Open-Source-Ingress-Controller/
2Prepare for deploying BMC Helix IT Operations Management 
aSet vm.max.counton all worker nodes.To set up vm.max.count on all worker nodes
bSet up BMC Discovery.To set up BMC Discovery 
cConfigure the BMC Discovery DNS.To configure the BMC Discovery DNS
dConfigure access to BMC Discovery.To configure access to BMC Discovery 
eEnable the Network Time Protocol (NTP)-Time synchronization.To enable the Network Time Protocol (NTP)-Time synchronization
3Install BMC Helix IT Operations Management 
 Install  BMC Helix IT Operations Management./xwiki/wiki/internal/view/IT-Operations-Management/On-Premises-Deployment/itomdeploymaster/Deploying/

Installing and configuring Kubernetes Ingress Nginx Controller

The Ingress Nginx Controller installation creates an Azure Standard load balancer for your cluster. 

To install and configure Ingress Nginx Controller, perform the following tasks:

  1. Install Kubernetes Ingress Nginx Controller
  2. Configure Ingress Ngnix Controller.
  3. Install TLS certificate.

To install Ingress Nginx controller

  1. Based on the version of your Kubernetes, download one of the deploy.yaml files for the NGINX Ingress Controller.
  2. In the deploy.yaml file, modify the kind parameter value from Deployment to DaemonSet.
  3. Make sure that the namespace value for the ingress controller is ingress-nginx.
  4. Install Ingress Nginx controller by running the following command:
    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx/controller-v1.14.3/deploy/static/provider/cloud/deploy.yaml
    Ingress controller is installed and a Public (Load balancing type) Standard (SKU) load balancer is created.
  5. To view the load balancer details, run the following command:
    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx/controller-v1.14.3/deploy/static/provider/cloud/deploy.yaml
    Example output of the command is as follows:NAME                                 TYPE               CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP      PORT(S)                      AGE
    ingress-nginx-controller             LoadBalancer   10.0.140.244    20.253.121.236   80:30740/TCP,443:30802/TCP   3d21h
    ingress-nginx-controller-admission   ClusterIP          10.0.119.115    <none>           443/TCP                      3d21h

    The EXTERNAL-IP is the IP address of external load balancer that is created in the Azure cloud.

  6. In the DNS records, make sure that you have configured the external IP as the target for application URL host names.

  7. Verify that the pods are running on each worker node.
    Worker nodes are added to the load balancer backend pools automatically as shown in the following example image:
    Backend pools.png

To configure Ingress Nginx Controller

  1. Identify the Ingress Nginx Controller configmap name by running the following command:
    kubectl get all -n <ingress_nginx_namespace>
  2. Modify the configmap name to use the configmap in your environment by running the following command:
    kubectl edit cm <ingress_nginx_configmap> -n <ingress_nginx_namespace>
    Example command output:
    data:
      enable-underscores-in-headers: "true"
      proxy-body-size: 250m
      server-name-hash-bucket-size: "1024"
      ssl-redirect: "false"
      use-forwarded-headers: "true"

To install TLS certificate

To install a Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificate in the Ingress Nginx Controller for TLS termination, perform the following steps:

  1. Create a secret with a certificate and key that you want to mount on the Ingress Controller pods by using the following command:
    kubectl create secret tls my-tls-secret --cert=/path/to/cert.pem --key=/path/to/privkey.pem -n ingress-nginx
  2. Edit the daemonset by using the following command and add the secret in the args section.
    kubectl edit daemonset ingress-nginx-controller -n ingress-nginx
    Example command output:
    ...     spec:       containers:       - args:         - /nginx-ingress-controller         - --publish-service=$(POD_NAMESPACE)/ingress-nginx-controller         - --election-id=ingress-controller-leader         - --controller-class=k8s.io/ingress-nginx         - --ingress-class=nginx         - --configmap=$(POD_NAMESPACE)/ingress-nginx-controller         - --validating-webhook=:8443         - --validating-webhook-certificate=/usr/local/certificates/cert         - --validating-webhook-key=/usr/local/certificates/key         - --default-ssl-certificate=ingress-nginx/my-tls-secret

 

Preparing to deploy BMC Helix IT Operations Management

  1. Set vm.max.count on all worker nodes.
  2. Set up BMC Discovery .
  3. Configure the DNS.
  4. Configure access to BMC Discovery.
  5. Enable the Network Time Protocol (NTP)-Time Sync.

To set up vm.max.count on all worker nodes

  1. Obtain the nodes in the cluster by running the following command:
    kubectl get nodes
    Example output:
    aks-is1-31789813-vmss000001         Ready    agent   19m   v1.23.12
  2. Configure the vm.max_map_count by running the followig command:
    kubectl debug node/aks-is1-31789813-vmss00000a -it --image=mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/runtime-deps:6.0
  3. In the debug container, run the following commands in the given order:
    chroot /host
    echo vm.max_map_count=262144 > /etc/sysctl.d/es-custom.conf
    sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144
  4. Exit the debug container.

To set up BMC Discovery

See Deploying a BMC Discovery virtual appliance into Microsoft Azure for instructions on setting up BMC Discovery.

Important

Microsoft Azure requires the disk image to be in the VHD format instead of the VMDK format, in which BMC Discovery is supplied. While converting the VMDK file to the VHD format, use fixed the VHD type to create a pre-allocated disk space.

To configure the BMC Discovery DNS

Create a DNS alias for the URL created for BMC Discovery with the IP of the BMC Discoverymachine in the following format

COMPANY-disc-TENANT_TYPE-ENVIRONMENT.DOMAIN

where the COMPANY, TENANT_TYPE, ENVIRONMENT, and DOMAIN parameters are derived from the helix-on-prem-deployment-manager/configs/infra.config file.

Example: acme-disc-private-poc.lab.bmc.com

For more information, see Configuration file settings.

Important

Ensure that the format of the URL is as shown in the above example.

To configure access to BMC Discovery

  1. After BMC Discovery is set up and configured, ensure that BMC Discovery DNS alias is resolvable from all worker nodes.
  2. Allow the 443 and 25030-25033 ports from worker nodes to BMC Discovery virtual machine.
  3. From the worker nodes, ensure that the following telnet protocol works:
    telnet <Discovery Appliance DNS alias> 443/25030/25031/25032/25033
  4. Ensure that BMC Discovery can access BMC Helix Single Sign-on and the BMC Helix Portal URLs.

To enable the Network Time Protocol (NTP)-Time synchronization

For instructions, see Performing time synchronization.

Where to go from here

Performing the post deployment procedures

 

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BMC Helix IT Operations Management deployment 26.1