Gravity: Upstream Kubernetes packaging that takes drama out of on-prem deploys

Gravity is an upstream Kubernetes packaging solution that takes the drama out of on-premises deployments.

Introduction

Gravity is an open source toolkit for creating "images" of Kubernetes clusters and the applications running inside the clusters. The resulting images are called cluster images and they are just .tar files.

A cluster image can be used to re-create full replicas of the original cluster in any environment where compliance and consistency matters, i.e. in locked-down AWS/GCE/Azure environments or even in air-gapped server rooms. An image can run without human supervision, as a "kubernetes appliance".

Gravity has been running in production in major financial institutions, government data centers and enterprises. Gravitational open sourced it in the fall of 2018.

Gravity vs ...

There are plenty of Kubernetes distributions out there. Most of them aim to be flexible, general purpose platforms. Gravity has a more narrow focus on compliance and reducing the overhead of managing Kubernetes :

• Gravity clusters are idempotent, i.e. clusters created from the same image are always identical . There is no configuration drift over time; no "special snowflakes".
• Gravity clusters are always "wrapped" with a privileged access gateway called Teleport , which unifies k8s and SSH authentication, integrates with SSO and keeps a detailed audit log for compliance purposes. It even records the interactive SSH and kubectl exec sessions.
• Gravity clusters deployed world-wide can be remotely managed via built-in reverse SSH tunnels, i.e. developers can have access to thousands of k8s API endpoints even if they're located behind NAT/firewalls.
• Gravity includes tools to perform infrastructure validation prior to cluster provisioning. This allows cluster designers to prevent users from installing clusters on infrastructure that does not meet the system requirements.
• Gravity clusters only allow Kubernetes components that have been thoroughly tested by Gravitational Inc for compatibility and stability. These components are called a "Kubernetes Runtime". Users can pick a Runtime but Gravity does not allow any customization of individual components of Kubernetes.

Who is Gravity for?

We have seen the following primary use cases for using a image-based Kubernetes approach (there may be others):

• Deploying complex SaaS applications into on-premises enterprise environments.
• Managing many idempotent Kubernetes clusters in environments where compliance and security matters. An example would be if you want the same, compliant Kubernetes environment across a variety of organizations or infrastructure environments.
• Environments where autonomous Kubernetes is required, such as large multi-node hardware appliances, production floors, edge deployments, etc.

Anyone who needs Kubernetes best practices out of the box, without having to proactively manage it can benefit from Gravity. It allows you to focus on building your product instead of managing Kubernetes.

Cluster Images

A Cluster Image produced by Gravity includes:

• All Kubernetes binaries and their dependencies.
• Built-in container registry.
• De-duplicated layers of all application containers inside a cluster.
• Built-in cluster orchestrator which guarantees HA operation, in-place upgrades and auto-scaling.
• Installation wizard for both CLI and web browser GUI.

An image is all one needs to re-create the complete replica of the original Kubernetes cluster, with all deployed applications inside, even in an air-gapped server room.

Remote Access and Compliance

Each cluster provisioned with Gravity includes the built-in SSH/Kubernetes gateway called Teleport . Teleport provides the following benefits:

kubectl

Teleport can also be used independently without Gravity, it has been audited multiple times by reputable cyber security companies and it has been deployed in production in multiple organizations .

Is Gravity Production Ready?

Yes! Even though Gravity was open sourced in September 2018, it started life much earlier, as a component of a larger, proprietary system called Telekube.

Fully autonomous Gravity clusters are running inside of large banks, government institutions, enterprises, etc. Some of the commercial users of Gravity are listed on the Gravitational web site

Why did We Build Gravity?

Gravity was built by Gravitational Inc , a company based in Oakland, California. Gravitational's mission is to allow software creators to easily share their products with customers without having to convert themselves into software operators.

The original use case for Gravity was to allow Kubernetes applications to be deployed into 3rd party environments, like on-premises datacenters. That's why Gravity includes features like the built-in, graphical cluster installer, infrastructure validation and a built-in privileged access manager (Teleport) for providing remote support.

These features also resonated with security-minded teams who need to run applications in environments where compliance matters . Gravity clusters are always identical and do not allow any configuration drift over time, which allows cluster designers (aka, Devops or SREs) to "publish" clusters that are approved for production and allow multiple teams within the organization to rapidly scale their Kubernetes adoption without having to become security and Kubernetes experts themselves.

Building from source

Gravity is written in Go. There are two ways to build the Gravity tools from source: by using locally installed build tools or via Docker. In both cases you will need a Linux machine.

Building on MacOS, even with Docker, is possible but not currently supported

$ git clone git@github.com:gravitational/gravity.git
$ cd gravity

# Running 'make' with the default target uses Docker.
# The output will be stored in build/current/
$ make

# If you have Go 1.10+ installed, you can build without Docker which is faster.
# The output will be stored in $GOPATH/bin/
$ make install

# To remove the build artifacts:
$ make clean

Known Issues

While the code is open source, we're still working on updating the documentation to reflect the differences between the proprietary and community/OSS editions of the software. We are also working on providing open source users with pre-built binaries on a regular basis.

Contributing

To contribute, please read the contribution guidelines .

Talk to us

• Want to join our team to hack on Gravity? We are always hiring!
• Want to stop managing Kubernetes and have autonomous appliance-like clusters?
• Want to take your complex SaaS application and convert it into a downloadable appliance so your customers can run it on their own AWS account or in a colo?

Reach out to info@gravitational.com