Getting Started - Installation¶

In this getting started guide you will install Ververica Platform and integrate it with MinIO for Universal Blob Storage. Optionally, we also show you how to link the platform to a metrics and logging system.

Setting the Stage
- Kubernetes
- Helm
Setting Up the Playground
- Anatomy of this Playground
- Installing the Components
Logging and Metrics Integrations (Optional)
- Metrics
- Logging
Next Steps
Cleaning Up

Setting the Stage ¶

Kubernetes ¶

Ververica Platform runs on top of Kubernetes. In order to get started locally we recommend using minikube, but any other Kubernetes Cluster (1.11+) will do, too.

Minikube relies on virtualization support by your operating system as well as a hypervisor (e.g. Virtualbox). Please check the official installation guide for details.

Minikube on Mac OS (homebrew)¶

$ brew install kubectl minikube

Minikube on Windows (Chocolatey)¶

$ choco install kubernetes-cli minikube

Minikube on Linux¶

There are packages available for most distros and package managers. Please check the kubectl installation guide as well as the minikube installation guide for details.

Spinning up a Kubernetes Cluster¶

First, you start minikube. The platform (including a small Apache Flink® application) requires at least 8G of memory and 4 CPUs.

$ minikube start --memory=8G --cpus=4

If this went well, you can continue and check if all system pods are ready.

$ kubectl get pods -n kube-system

Depending on your exact version of minikube, the output should look more or less similar to

NAME                               READY   STATUS    RESTARTS  AGE
coredns-5644d7b6d9-56zhg           1/1     Running   1         2m
coredns-5644d7b6d9-fdnts           1/1     Running   1         2m
etcd-minikube                      1/1     Running   1         2m
kube-addon-manager-minikube        1/1     Running   1         2m
kube-apiserver-minikube            1/1     Running   1         2m
kube-controller-manager-minikube   1/1     Running   1         2m
kube-proxy-9w92r                   1/1     Running   1         2m
kube-scheduler-minikube            1/1     Running   1         2m
storage-provisioner                1/1     Running   2         2m

If all pods are running, you are good to go.

Helm ¶

“Helm helps you manage Kubernetes applications — Helm Charts help you define, install, and upgrade even the most complex Kubernetes application.” - helm.sh

We distribute Ververica Platform as a Helm Chart. To install Helm please follow the instructions on the official installation guide or use one of the one-liners below.

Helm on Mac OS (homebrew)¶

$ brew install helm

Helm on Windows (Chocolatey)¶

$ choco install kubernetes-helm

Helm on Linux¶

As before, there is a package available for most distros and package managers. For details check the official installation guide.

Setting Up Tiller¶

Tiller is not required for Helm 3. You can skip this step.

Helm 2 requires a server-side component called Tiller. The commands below set up Tiller in the kube-system namespace with the required permissions to install Helm charts in this Kubernetes cluster.

# create service account
$ kubectl --namespace kube-system create serviceaccount tiller

# bind service account to "cluster-admin" role
$ kubectl create clusterrolebinding tiller \
    --clusterrole cluster-admin \
    --serviceaccount=kube-system:tiller

# initialize helm with previously created service account
$ helm init --service-account tiller

Please wait until the Tiller pod becomes ready before proceeding. The command helm list should return an empty list without any errors.

Setting Up the Playground ¶

This guide is based on the Ververica Platform playground repository which contains scripts and Helm values files to make for a smooth getting-started experience. Please clone the repository before continuing; all commands below are meant to be executed from the repository root directory.

$ git clone --branch release-2.3 https://github.com/ververica/ververica-platform-playground.git
$ cd ververica-platform-playground

Anatomy of this Playground ¶

For this playground, you will create two Kubernetes namespaces: vvp and vvp-jobs. vvp will host the control plane of Ververica Platform and other services, while the Apache Flink® jobs managed by the platform will run in the vvp-jobs namespace.

In addition to Ververica Platform, we will set up MinIO in the vvp namespace, which will be used for artifact storage and Apache Flink® checkpoints & savepoints (see Universal Blob Storage).

Installing the Components ¶

TL;DR¶

You can skip all of the installation steps outlined below by running:

$ ./setup.sh --edition community

$ ./setup.sh --edition enterprise

Kubernetes Namespaces¶

Before installing any of the components you need to create the Kubernetes namespaces vvp and vvp-jobs.

$ kubectl create namespace vvp
$ kubectl create namespace vvp-jobs

MinIO¶

Install MinIO with Helm, using the official Helm chart from the stable repository.

If you have never added the stable Helm repository, do this now:

$ helm repo add stable https://kubernetes-charts.storage.googleapis.com

Then install MinIO with:

$ helm --namespace vvp \
    install minio stable/minio \
    --values values-minio.yaml

The stable repository is already preconfigured.

$ helm install stable/minio \
    --name minio \
    --namespace vvp \
    --values values-minio.yaml

Ververica Platform¶

Then, install Ververica Platform using helm. The required configurations slightly differ based on the product edition you would like to install.

Ververica Platform Community Edition

$ helm repo add ververica https://charts.ververica.com
$ helm --namespace vvp \
    install vvp ververica/ververica-platform \
    --values values-vvp.yaml

When running the command above you will be asked to accept the Ververica Platform Community Edition license agreement. Please read it carefully and except it by setting acceptCommunityEditionLicense to true:

$ helm --namespace vvp \
    install vvp ververica/ververica-platform \
    --values values-vvp.yaml \
    --set acceptCommunityEditionLicense=true

$ helm repo add ververica https://charts.ververica.com
$ helm install ververica/ververica-platform \
    --name vvp \
    --namespace vvp \
    --values values-vvp.yaml

When running the command above you will be asked to accept the Ververica Platform Community Edition license agreement. Please read it carefully and except it by setting acceptCommunityEditionLicense to true:

$ helm install ververica/ververica-platform \
    --name vvp \
    --namespace vvp \
    --values values-vvp.yaml \
    --set acceptCommunityEditionLicense=true

Before you can run Ververica Platform Stream Edition, you must add your license to a values file values-license.yaml under vvp.license.data. If you do not have a license yet, you can request a 30 day free trial license from the Ververica website.

The values-license.yaml file should look similar to:

### Provide Ververica Platform License (free trial: ververica.com/enterprise-trial)
vvp:
  license:
    data: {
      "kind": "License",
      "apiVersion": "v1",
      "metadata": {
        "id": "53b8cf22-1af2-44bd-a7ba-7420418f6572",
        "createdAt": "2020-02-21T12:56:52.407899Z",
        "annotations": {
          "signature": "<omitted>",
          "licenseSpec": "ewogICJsaWNlbnNlSWQiIDogIjUzYjhjZjIyLTFhZjItNDRiZC1hN2JhLTc0MjA0MThmNjU3MiIsCiAgImxpY2Vuc2VkVG8iIDogInRlc3QiLAogICJleHBpcmVzIiA6ICIyMDIwLTAzLTIyVDEyOjU2OjUxLjg3MzU1M1oiLAogICJwYXJhbXMiIDogewogICAgInF1b3RhLnR5cGUiIDogIlVOTElNSVRFRCIsCiAgICAidHJpYWwiIDogInRydWUiCiAgfQp9"
        }
      },
      "spec": {
        "licenseId": "53b8cf22-1af2-44bd-a7ba-7420418f6572",
        "licensedTo": "My Company Inc.",
        "expires": "2020-03-22T12:56:51.873553Z",
        "params": {
          "quota.type": "UNLIMITED",
          "trial": "true"
        }
      }
    }

$ helm repo add ververica https://charts.ververica.com
$ helm install vvp ververica/ververica-platform \
  --namespace vvp \
  --values values-vvp.yaml \
  --values values-license.yaml

$ helm repo add ververica https://charts.ververica.com
$ helm install ververica/ververica-platform \
  --name vvp \
  --namespace vvp \
  --values values-vvp.yaml \
  --values values-license.yaml

In order to access the web user interface or the REST API set up a port forward to the Ververica Platform Kubernetes service:

$ kubectl --namespace vvp port-forward services/vvp-ververica-platform 8080:80

The web interface and API are both now available under localhost:8080. The UI will show that you do not have any Deployments yet.

Logging and Metrics Integrations (Optional)¶

Ververica Platform can be integrated with logging and metrics collection and querying/visualization systems to help monitor and debug your Flink applications.

The setup.sh script included in the playground repository accepts flags --with-logging and --with-metrics that enable additional demo components for logging and metrics respectively.

Note

The --with-logging and --with-metrics flags can be used separately or together, and can be applied after the initial installation simply by running setup.sh again.

--with-logging installs Elasticsearch, Fluentd, and Kibana to collect, index, and provide a web interface for querying Flink application logs
--with-metrics installs Prometheus, a metrics collection and storage system, and Grafana, a time series visualization web application

This setup uses Global Deployment Defaults to ensure each Flink job is configured to use the built-in Prometheus metrics reporter and that each Kubernetes pod running Flink gets an annotation that makes it discoverable by the Prometheus server.

Metrics ¶

After installing or upgrading the platform using ./setup.sh --with-metrics, run the following command to port-forward Grafana:

$ kubectl --namespace vvp port-forward services/grafana 3000:80

Then, when viewing one of your Deployments in the web UI, click the Metrics button to be linked to a sample monitoring dashboard in Grafana for that Deployment. It may take a few minutes for metrics to appear.

To understand this setup, check out the following files:

values-prometheus.yaml: Configuration for the Prometheus Helm chart. This example uses the default configuration except for disabling components we don’t need.
values-grafana.yaml: Configuration for the Grafana Helm chart.

A datasource and dashboard are preconfigured, and auth is disabled to make for a convenient demonstration.
values-vvp.yaml: See the globalDeploymentDefaults section for how the Prometheus metrics reporter and pod annotations are automatically configured for all Deployments.
values-vvp-add-metrics.yaml: This enables the Metric button on a Deployment or Job in the web UI that links to Grafana.

Logging ¶

After installing or upgrading the platform using ./setup.sh --with-logging, run the following command to port-forward Kibana:

$ kubectl --namespace vvp port-forward services/kibana 5601:5601

Then, when viewing one of your Deployments in the web UI, click the Logs button to be linked to Kibana with a pre-filled query to only show logs from that Deployment.

To understand this setup, check out the following files:

values-{elasticsearch,fluentd,kibana}.yaml: Configuration for the Elasticsearch, Fluentd, and Kibana Helm charts.
values-vvp-add-logging.yaml: This enables the Logs button on a Deployment or Job in the web UI that links to Kibana.

Next Steps ¶

Now, you can either continue with Getting Started - Flink SQL or Getting Started - Flink Operations.

Choose Getting Started - Flink SQL to learn how to develop and operate Flink SQL applications with Ververica Platform
Chose Getting Started - Flink Operations to learn how Ververica Platform facilitates operations and application lifecycle management for Apache Flink®

Cleaning Up ¶

Run the script ./teardown.sh to clean up all applications deployed with Helm created in this tutorial and delete the namespaces created in the first step.

Alternately, do this manually with the following commands:

$ kubectl delete namespace vvp vvp-jobs

$ helm delete --purge vvp
$ helm delete --purge minio

# If installed with --with-metrics
$ helm delete --purge prometheus
$ helm delete --purge grafana

# If installed with --with-logging
$ helm delete --purge kibana
$ helm delete --purge fluentd
$ helm delete --purge elasticsearch

$ kubectl delete namespace vvp vvp-jobs