Simplified Redpanda Deployment on QBO for High-Performance Streaming

QBO’s innovative container-based approach ensures that workloads like Redpanda, a streaming data platform, run with metal performance. This blog demonstrates how to deploy Redpanda on QBO while leveraging its containerized Kubernetes ecosystem.

Why QBO?

QBO is ideal for Redpanda deployments because of its:

  • Pure Container Technology: Simplifies containerized workloads for Redpanda clusters.
  • High Performance: Bare-metal efficiency, critical for streaming workloads.
  • Scalability: Effortless management of Kubernetes nodes for growing clusters.

Steps to Deploy Redpanda on QBO

1. Verify the QBO CLI Installation

Ensure the CLI is installed:

qbo version | jq .version[]?

2. Add a Redpanda Cluster

Add a new Redpanda cluster with three nodes:

qbo add cluster redpanda -n 3 -i hub.docker.com/kindest/node:v1.32.0 | jq

3. List Nodes in the Cluster

Retrieve the list of nodes in the cluster:

qbo get nodes redpanda | jq .nodes[]?

4. Configure Kubernetes

Cloud Environment:

qbo get cluster redpanda -k | jq -r '.output[]?.kubeconfig | select( . != null)' > $HOME/.qbo/redpanda.conf
export KUBECONFIG=$HOME/.qbo/redpanda.conf

On-Premises:

export KUBECONFIG=/tmp/qbo/redpanda.conf

5. Deploy Cert-Manager

Install cert-manager to manage TLS certificates:

helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io
helm repo update
helm install cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager --set crds.enabled=true --namespace cert-manager --create-namespace

6. Deploy Redpanda Operator

Install and configure the Redpanda operator:

kubectl kustomize "https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda-operator//operator/config/crd?ref=v2.3.6-24.3.3" | kubectl apply --server-side -f -
helm repo add redpanda https://charts.redpanda.com
helm repo update redpanda
helm upgrade --install redpanda-controller redpanda/operator --namespace redpanda --set image.tag=v2.3.6-24.3.3 --create-namespace

7. Deploy Redpanda Cluster

Apply the Redpanda cluster configuration:

kubectl apply -f redpanda-cluster.yaml --namespace redpanda
kubectl get redpanda --namespace redpanda --watch

8. Expose Redpanda Service

Enable external access by patching the service to a LoadBalancer:

kubectl patch svc redpanda-external -n redpanda -p '{"spec":{"type":"LoadBalancer"}}'

9. Install RPK CLI

If RPK is not installed, download and configure it:

curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-linux-amd64.zip
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
unzip rpk-linux-amd64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/
export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH"

10. Fetch Cluster Information

Retrieve cluster details using RPK:

rpk cluster info -X user=superuser -X pass=secretpassword -X sasl.mechanism=SCRAM-SHA-512

Final Notes

QBO empowers Redpanda deployments with metal performance and scalability, making it ideal for streaming data applications. By leveraging QBO’s efficient container platform, developers can achieve high throughput and low latency for mission-critical workloads.