Deploying-Pega-on-PKS.md

Deploying Pega Platform on a PKS cluster

Deploy Pega Platform™ on a Pivotal Container Service (PKS) cluster using a PostgreSQL database you configure in Google Cloud Platform (GCP). If your PKS cluster is deployed on a different cloud, the database steps may be different. These procedures are written for any level of user, from a system administrator to a development engineer who is interested in learning how to install and deploy Pega Platform onto a PKS cluster.

Pega helps enterprises and agencies quickly build business apps that deliver the outcomes and end-to-end customer experiences that you need. Use the procedures in this guide, to install and deploy Pega software onto a PKS cluster without much experience in either PKS configurations or Pega Platform deployments.

Create a deployment of Pega Platform on which you can implement a scalable Pega application in a PKS cluster. You can use this deployment for a Pega Platform development environment. By completing these procedures, you deploy Pega Platform on a PKS cluster with a PostgreSQL database instance and two clustered virtual machines (VMs).

Deployment process overview

Use Kubernetes tools and the customized orchestration tools and Docker images to orchestrate a deployment in a PKS cluster that you create for the deployment:

1. Prepare your local system:

   • To prepare a local Linux system, install required applications and configuration files - Preparing your local Linux system – 45 minutes.

   • To prepare a local Windows system, install required applications and configuration files - Preparing your local Windows 10 system – 45 minutes.

2. Verify access to your PKS cluster and create an SQL instance in an account such as Google Cloud Platform (GPC) - Prepare your PKS resources – 45 minutes.

3. Customize a configuration file with your PKS details and use the command-line tools, kubectl and Helm, to install and then deploy Pega Platform onto your PKS cluster - Deploying Pega Platform using Helm charts – 90 minutes.

4. Configure your network connections in the DNS management zone of your choice so you can log in to Pega Platform - Logging in to Pega Platform – 10 minutes.

To understand how Pega maps Kubernetes objects with Pega applications and services, see How Pega Platform and applications are deployed on Kubernetes.

Assumptions and prerequisites

This guide assumes:

• You have a basic familiarity with running commands from a Windows 10 PowerShell with Administrator privileges or a Linux command prompt with root privileges.

• You use open source packaging tools on Windows or Linux to install applications onto your local system.

The following account, resources, and application versions are required for use in this document:

• A GCP account with a payment method set up to pay for the GCP resources you create and appropriate GCP account permissions and knowledge to:

  • Create a PostgreSQL Database.

  • Select an appropriate location in which to deploy your database resource; the document assumes your location is US East.

  You are responsible for any financial costs incurred for your GCP resources.

• Pega Platform 8.3.1 or later.

• Pega Docker images – your deployment requires the use of a custom Docker image to install Pega Platform into a database that is used by your PKS cluster. After you build your image, you must make it available in a private Docker registry. To build your own image from the base image that Pega provides, you must have:

  • A DockerHub account to which you will push your final image to a private DockerHub repository. The image you build with Pega-provided components cannot be shared in a public DockerHub repository.

  • The Docker application downloaded to your local system, either Linux- or Windows-based. Log into your DockerHub account from the Docker application on your local system.

• Helm 3.0 or later. Helm is only required to use the Helm charts and not to use the Kubernetes YAML examples directly. For more information, see the Helm documentation portal.

• kubectl – the Kubernetes command-line tool that you use to connect to and manage your Kubernetes resources.

Prepare your resources – 45 minutes

This section covers the details necessary to obtain your PKS credentials and configure the required PostgreSQL database in a GCP account. Pega supports creating a PostgreSQL database in any environment if the IP address of the database is available to your PKS cluster.

Accessing a PKS cluster

Access to a Pivotal PKS cluster is required to deploy using PKS. At a minimum, your cluster should be provisioned with at least two worker nodes that have 32GB of RAM in order to support the typical processing loads in a Pega Platform deployment. Pivotal supports SSL authentication, which you can request if your organization requires it.

In order to login to your cluster, you must have the following information:

• The target IP address of your PKS API

• The login credentials: username and password

• Whether any SSL information is required to authenticate your login.

During deployment the required Kubernetes configuration file is copied into the cluster.

Creating a database resource

PKS deployments require you to install Pega Platform software in an SQL database. After you create an SQL instance that is available to your PKS cluster, you must create a PostgreSQL database in which to install Pega Platform. When you are finished, you will need the database name and the SQL instance IP address which you create in this procedure in order to add this information to your pega.yaml Helm chart.

Creating an SQL instance

To begin, create an SQL Instance that is available to your PKS cluster. In this example, we create an SQL instance in GCP; however, you can create or use an database resource that is available to the PKS cluster.

1. Use a web browser to log in to https://cloud.google.com/ and navigate to your Console in the upper right corner.

2. In your Google Cloud Platform console, use the Navigation Menu to go to Storage grouping and select SQL.

3. In the SQL page, click +Create Instance.

4. In the Choose your database engine screen, click Choose PostgreSQL.

5. In the Create PostgreSQL instance page, add details to the following required fields for this database server:

   a. In Instance ID, enter a database server ID.

   b. In Default user password, enter a “postgres” user password.

   c. Select an appropriate Region and Zone for your database server, which must be in the same zone or region as your PKS cluster.

   d. In Database version, select PostgreSQL 11.

   e. In Configuration options > Connectivity, select Public IP, click + Add Network, enter a Name and Network of one or more IP address to whitelist for this PostgreSQL database, and click Done.

   You can launch the Kubernetes dashboard to view the external IP address of the nodes in your cluster; to add that IP network to the database whitelist, enter the first three sets of number,and use 0/24 for the final set in this IP range. For example: 123.123.123.0/24.

6. In Configuration options > Machine type and storage:

   a. For Machine type, select 4 vCPU Cores and 15 GB Memory.

   b. For Network throughput, select SSD (Recommended).

   c. For Storage capacity, enter 20 GB and select Enable automatic storage increases.

7. Configure the remaining setting using the default values:

   a. For Auto backups and high availability, select backups can be automated 1AM – 5AM in a single zone.

   b. For Flags, no flags are required.

   c. For Maintenance, any preference is supported.

   d. For Labels, no labels are required.

   Labels can help clarify billing details for your PKS resources.

8. Click Create.

   A deployment progress page displays the status of your deployment until it is complete, which takes up to 5 minutes. When complete, the GCP UI displays all of the SQL resources in your account, which includes your newly created SQL instance:

Creating a database in your SQL instance

Create a PostgreSQL database in your new SQL instance for the Pega Platform installation. Use the database editing tool of your choice to log into your SQL instance and create this new PostgreSQL database. The following example was completed using pgAdmin4.

1. Use a database editor tool, such as pgadmin4, to log into your SQL instance.

   You can find your access information and login credentials, by selecting the SQL instance in the GCP console.

2. In the database editor tool, navigate to Databases and create a new database.

   No additional configuration is required.

With your SQL service IP address and your new database name, you are ready to continue to the next section.

Installing and deploying Pega Platform using Helm charts – 90 minutes

To deploy Pega Platform by using Helm, customize the pega.yaml Helm chart that holds the specific settings for your deployment needs and then run a series of Helm commands to complete the deployment.

An installation with deployment will take about 90 minutes total, because a Pega Platform installation in your PostgreSQL database takes up to an hour.

Updating the pega.yaml Helm chart values

To deploy Pega Platform, configure the parameters in the pega.yaml Helm chart to your deployment resource. Pega maintains a repository of Helm charts that are required to deploy Pega Platform by using Helm, including a generic version of this chart. To configure parameters this file, download it from the repository to your local system, edit it with a text editor, and then save it with the same filename. To simplify the instruction, you can download the file to the \gke-demo folder you have already created on your local system.

Configure the parameters so the pega.yaml Helm chart matches your deployment resources in these areas:

• Specify that this is an PKS deployment.

• Credentials for your DockerHub account in order to access the required Docker images.

• Access your GCP SQL database.

• Install the version of Pega Platform that you built into your Docker installation image.

• Specify host names for your web and stream tiers.

1. To download the pega.yaml Helm chart to the <local filepath>/pks-demo, enter:

$ helm inspect values pega/pega > pega.yaml

2. Use a text editor to open the pega.yaml file and update the following parameters in the chart based on your PKS requirements:

Chart parameter name	Purpose	Your setting
provider:	Specify a PKS deployment.	provider:"pks"
actions.execute:	Specify a “deploy” deployment type.	execute: "deploy"
Jdbc.url:	Specify the database IP address and database name for your Pega Platform installation.	url: "jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/dbName" where localhost is the public IP address you configured for your database connectivity and dbName is the name you entered for your PostgreSQL database in Creating a database resource.
Jdbc.driverClass:	Specify the driver class for a PostgreSQL database.	driverClass: "org.postgresql.Driver"
Jdbc.dbType:	Specify PostgreSQL database type.	dbType: "postgres”
Jdbc.driverUri:	Specify the database driver Pega Platform uses during the deployment.	driverUri: "latest jar file available” For PostgreSQL databases, use the URL of the latest PostgreSQL driver file that is publicly available at https://jdbc.postgresql.org/download.html.
Jdbc: username: password:	Set the security credentials for your database server to allow installation of Pega Platform into your database.	username: "<name of your database user>" password: "<password for your database user>" -- For GCP PostgreSQL databases, the default user is “postgres”.
jdbc.rulesSchema: jdbc.dataSchema:	Set the names of both your rules and the data schema to the values that Pega Platform uses for these two schemas.	rulesSchema: "rules" dataSchema: "data"
docker.registry.url: username: password:	Map the host name of a registry to an object that contains the “username” and “password” values for that registry. For more information, search for “index.docker.io/v1” in Engine API v1.24.	url: “https://index.docker.io/v1/” username: "<DockerHub account username>" password: "< DockerHub account password>"
docker.pega.image:	Refer to the latest Pega Platform deployment image on DockerHub.	Image: "pegasystems/pega:latest" For a list of default images that Pega provides: https://hub.docker.com/r/pegasystems/pega-ready/tags
upgrade:	Do not set for installations or deployments.	upgrade: for non-upgrade, keep the default value.
tier.name: ”web” tier.ingress.domain:	Set a host name for the pega-web service of the DNS zone.	domain: "<the host name for your web service tier>" Assign this host name with an external IP address and log into Pega Platform with this host name in the URL. Your web tier host name must comply with your networking standards and be available as an external IP address. tier.ingress.tls: set to true to support HTTPS in the ingress and pass the SSL certificate in the cluster using a secret. For details, see step 12 in the section, Deploying Pega Platform using the command line.
tier.name: ”stream” tier.ingress.domain:	Set the host name for the pega-stream service of the DNS zone.	domain: "<the host name for your stream service tier>" Your stream tier host name should comply with your networking standards. Your stream tier hostname should comply with your networking standards. tier.ingress.tls: set to true to support HTTPS in the ingress and pass the SSL certificate in the cluster using a secret. For details, see step 12 in the section, Deploying Pega Platform using the command line. To remove the exposure of a stream from external network traffic, delete the service and ingress blocks in the tier.
installer.image:	Specify the Docker image you built to install Pega Platform.	Image: "<your installation Docker image :your tag>" You created this image in Preparing your local Linux system
installer. adminPassword:	Specify a password for your initial log in to Pega Platform.	adminPassword: "<initial password>"

3. Save the file.

Deploying Pega Platform using the command line

A Helm installation and a Pega Platform installation are separate processes. The Helm install command uses Helm to install your deployment as directed in the Helm charts, one in the charts\addons folder and one in the charts\pega folder.

In this document, you specify that the Helm chart always “deploys” by using the setting, actions.execute: “deploy”. In the following tasks, you overwrite this function on your initial Helm install by specifying --set global.actions.execute:install-deploy, which invokes an installation of Pega Platform using your installation Docker image and then automatically followed by a deploy. In subsequent Helm deployments, you should not use the override argument, --set global.actions.execute=, since Pega Platform is already installed in your database.

1. Do one of the following:

• Open Windows PowerShell running as Administrator on your local system and change the location to the top folder of your pks-demo folder that you created in Preparing your local Windows 10 system.

  $ cd <local filepath>\pks-demo

• Open a Linux bash shell and change the location to the top folder of your pks-demo directory that you created in Preparing your local Linux system.

  $ cd /home/<local filepath>/pks-demo

2. To use the PKS CLI to log into your account using the PKS API and login credentials and skip SSL validation, enter:

   $ pks login -a <API> -u <USERNAME> -p <PASSWORD> -k

If you need to validate with SSL, replace the -k with --ca-cert <PATH TO CERT>.

3. To view the status of all of your PKS clusters and verify the name of the cluster for the Pega Platform deployment, enter:

   $ pks clusters

Your cluster name is displayed in the Name field.

4. To use the PKS CLI to download the cluster Kubeconfig access credential file, which is specific to your cluster, into your <local filepath>/.kube directory, enter:

    $ pks get-credentials <cluster-name>`
    Fetching credentials for cluster pega-platform.
    Context set for cluster pega-platform.

If you need to use a Bearer Token Access Credentials instead of this credential file, see the Pivotal document, Accessing Dashboard.

5. To use the kubectl command to view the VM nodes, including cluster names and status, enter:

   $ kubectl get nodes

6. To establish a required cluster role binding setting so that you can launch the Kubernetes dashboard, enter:

$ kubectl create clusterrolebinding dashboard-admin -n kube-system --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kube-system:kubernetes-dashboard

7. To start the proxy server for the Kubernetes dashboard, enter:

   $ kubectl proxy

8. To access the Dashboard UI, open a web browser and navigate to the following URL:

   http://localhost:8001/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/https:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/

9. In the Kubernetes Dashboard sign in window, choose the appropriate sign in method:

• To use a cluster Kubeconfig access credential file: select Kubeconfig, navigate to your <local filepath>/.kube directory and select the config file. Click SIGN IN.

• To use a cluster a Kubeconfig token: select Token and paste your Kubeconfig token into the Enter token area. Click SIGN IN.

  You can now view your deployment details using the Kubernetes dashboard. Use this dashboard to review the status of your deployment. Without a deployment, only PKS resources display. The dashboard does not display your PKS cluster name or your resource name, which is expected behavior.

  To continue using the Kubernetes dashboard to see the progress of your deployment, keep this PowerShell or Linux shell open.

10. Do one of the following:

• Open a new Windows PowerShell running as Administrator on your local system and change the location to the top folder of your pks-demo folder.

  $ cd <local filepath>\pks-demo

• Open a new Linux bash shell and change the location to the top folder of your pks-demo directory.

  $ cd /home/<local filepath>/pks-demo

11. To create namespaces in preparation for the pega.yaml and addons.yaml deployments, enter:

    $ kubectl create namespace mypega-pks-demo
    namespace/mypega-pks-demo created
    $ kubectl create namespace pegaaddons
    namespace/pegaaddons created

12. (Optional: To support HTTPS connectivity with Pega Platform) To pass the appropriate certificate to the ingress using a Kubernetes secret, enter:

    $ kubectl create secret tls <secret-name> --cert <cert.crt-file> --key <private.key-file> --namespace <namespace-name>

    To use a secrets file, make the following changes in the pega.yaml file for the exposed tiers in your deployment:

ingress:
  domain: "web.dev.pega.io"
  tls:
    enabled: true
    secretName: <secret-name>
    useManagedCertificate: false

13. To ensure the certificate is working in the cluster, enter:

    $ kubectl get secrets --namespace <namespace-name>

14. To install the addons chart, which you updated in Preparing your local system, enter:

    $ helm install addons pega/addons --namespace pegaaddons --values addons.yaml

The pegaddons namespace contains the deployment’s load balancer and the metric server configurations that you configured in the addons.yaml Helm chart. A successful pegaaddons deployment returns details of deployment progress. For further verification of your deployment progress, you can refresh the Kubernetes dashboard and look in the pegaaddons Namespace view.

15. To deploy Pega Platform for the first time by specifying to install Pega Platform into the database specified in the Helm chart when you install the pega.yaml Helm chart, enter:

    $ helm install mypega-pks-demo pega/pega --namespace mypega-pks-demo --values pega.yaml --set global.actions.execute=install-deploy

For subsequent Helm installs, use the command helm install mypega-pks-demo pega/pega --namespace mypega-pks-demo to deploy Pega Platform and avoid another Pega Platform installation.

A successful Pega deployment immediately returns details that show progress for your mypega-pks-demo deployment.

16. Refresh the Kubernetes dashboard that you opened in step 8. If you closed the dashboard, start the proxy server for the Kubernetes dashboard as directed in Step 7, and relaunch the web browser as directed in Step 8.

17. In the dashboard, in Namespace select the mypega-pks-demo view and then click on the Pods view. Initially, you can some pods have a red status, which means they are initializing:

Note: A deployment takes about 15 minutes for all resource configurations to initialize; however a full Pega Platform installation into the database can take up to an hour.

To follow the progress of an installation, use the dashboard. For subsequent deployments, you do not need to do this. Initially, while the resources make requests to complete the configuration, you will see red warnings while the configuration is finishing, which is expected behavior.

18. To view the status of an installation, on the Kubernetes dashboard, select Jobs, locate the pega-db-install job, and click the logs icon on the right side of that row.

    After you open the logs view, you can click the icon for automatic refresh to see current updates to the install log.

19. To see the final deployment in the Kubernetes dashboard after about 15 minutes, refresh the mypega-pks-demo namespace pods.

A successful deployment does not show errors across the various workloads. The mypega-pks-demo Namespace Overview view shows charts of the percentage of complete tiers and resources configurations. A successful deployment has 100% complete Workloads.

Logging in to Pega Platform – 10 minutes

After you complete your deployment, as a best practice, associate the host name of the pega-web tier ingress with the IP address that the deployment load balancer assigned to the tier during deployment. The host name of the pega-web tier ingress used in this demo, pks.web.dev.pega.io, is set in the pega.yaml file in the following lines:

tier:
  - name: "web"

    service:
      # Enter the domain name to access web nodes via a load balancer.
      #  e.g. web.mypega.example.com
      domain: "**pks.web.dev.pega.io**"

To log in to Pega Platform with this host name, assign the host name with the same IP address that the deployment load balancer assigned to the web tier. This final step ensures that you can log in to Pega Platform with your host name, on which you can independently manage security protocols that match your networking infrastructure standards.

To manually associate the host name of the pega-web tier ingress with the tier endpoint, use the DNS lookup management system of your choice. As an example, if your organization has a GCP Cloud DNS that is configured to manage your DNS lookups, create a record set that specifies the pega-web tier the host name and add the IP address of the pega-web tier.

For GCP Cloud DNS documentation details, see Quickstart. If not using the GCP Cloud DNS, for configuration details, see the documentation for your DNS lookup management system.

With the ingress host name name associated with this IP address in your DNS service, you can log in to Pega Platform with a web browser using the URL: http://\<pega-web tier ingress host name>/prweb.