6 ms·

Crossplane – Open Source Multicloud Control Plane

185 points by sytse 8y ago

kubletizer 8y ago
So how is this different from AWS Operator?
- bassamtabbara 8y ago
  Hi, this bassam (one of the maintainers on crossplane). We describe the relationship in our arch doc here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1whncqdUeU2cATGEJhHvzXWC9xdK29Er45NJeoemxebo/edit# https://docs.google.com/document/d/1whncqdUeU2cATGEJhHvzXWC9.... The following snippet is from that doc: The AWS Service Operator is a recent project that implements a set of Kubernetes controllers that are able to provision managed services in AWS. It defines a set of CRDs for managed services like DynamoDB, and controllers that can provision them via AWS CloudFormation. It is similar to Crossplane in that it can provision managed services in AWS. Crossplane goes a lot further by offering workload portability across cloud multiple cloud providers, separation of concern, and a scheduler for workload and resources.
- philips 8y ago
  This looks to work similarly to the Persistent Volumes in Kubernetes. To put it into OOP language Kubernetes persistent storage is modeled as an abstract class and a set of concrete types that implement a class. The advantage of this model is that an application requests the "Large and Slow Disk Class" not knowing how it works on each environment and a cluster owner then describes how to configure a spinning disk EC2 Storage to fulfill this class. So, the AWS Operator lets people use the Kubernetes APIs to configure AWS resources. But, if you use those APIs directly in say your Helm chart then your app won't be able to be configured and deployed on other cloud providers without editing those objects. Is it important to your application to be loosely coupled to the cloud provider? Then you need this sort of abstraction to enable portability. It sort of continues the Kubernetes vision beyond computer/network/storage into other cloud services like databases/serverless/AI/etc.
- mfer 8y ago
  The AWS operator targets AWS resources. You can't take them, in a general sense, to minikube, Azure, or elsewhere. It's declarative to AWS services. Some would call the AWS operator as a form of vendor lock-in. I think the idea here is about using services with portable apps across cloud provider.
  - la6470 8y ago
    who is going to provide support on this? is it the one man band called bassam? This whole open cloud cross platform bullshit reminds me of the time when some idiots used to write the same application to run on top of linux windows and AIX without any real business need and wasted a bunch of money and time in the whole process.
scarejunba 8y ago
I thought it was going to be a cross-cloud Terraform, but it looks like it's a bunch of presets operating on k8s? So when he asks for the DB, is he getting an RDS/CloudSQL/whatever or is it spinning up a DB on an EKS/GKE/whatever? I really don't like the latter in comparison to the former, tbh.
- bassamtabbara 8y ago
  scarejunba, this bassam (one of the maintainers on crossplane). when you ask for a DB you get an instance of RDS/CloudSQL/etc., in other words you are using the managed services of your cloud provider. we're just getting started with cross-cloud scenarios. would love your feedback on https://github.com/crossplaneio/crossplane https://github.com/crossplaneio/crossplane
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    Oh, I get it. Reading the design document[0] helped greatly. Should've done more than skim the blogpost. The definition of what you want is specified as a custom resource that is cloud-agnostic. Then a set of cloud-specific custom controllers are installed on a K8s instance and they control which cloud is affected by your `kubectl apply`. You have to set up your own k8s manually (there's no way to bootstrap), but then it's all fun and games. Nice. Very clever. 0: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1whncqdUeU2cATGEJhHvzXWC9xdK29Er45NJeoemxebo/edit#heading=h.annq8ww6da48 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1whncqdUeU2cATGEJhHvzXWC9...
- GordonS 8y ago
  > I thought it was going to be a cross-cloud Terraform Isn't Terraform already cross-cloud?
  - sytse 8y ago
    From the architecture document: Terraform is a popular tool for provisioning infrastructure across cloud providers. It offers a declarative configuration language with support for templating, composability, referential integrity and dependency management. Terraform can dynamically provision infrastructure and perform changes when the tool is run by a human. Unlike Crossplane, Terraform does not support workload portability across cloud providers, and does not have any active controllers that can react to failures, or make changes to running infrastructure without human intervention. Terraform attempts to solve multicloud at the tool level, while Crossplane is at the API and control plane level. Terraform is open source under a MPL license, and follows an open core business model, with a number of its features closed source. We are evaluating whether we can use Terraform to accelerate the development of resource controllers in Crossplane.
mfer 8y ago
This looks fairly similar to the new Kuberentes KEP for portable service definitions.... https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/blob/master/keps/sig-apps/0032-portable-service-definitions.md https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/blob/master/keps/...
- dylanz 8y ago
  Very similar. Can someone more familiar with Crossplane/KEP comment?
  - ichekrygin 8y ago
    Hi, this is ichekrygin (crossplane maintainer). Yes, indeed. There appears to be an overlap in general principles (even in use-case example). From what it appears, KEP sig was "published/released" (not sure what is the right term here) on the GitHub 3 days ago, we did not see this. However, now since it out there, we will definitely reach out to discuss.
  - bassamtabbara 8y ago
    Yes, indeed. There appears to be an overlap in general principles (even in use-case example). From what it appears, KEP sig was "published/released" (not sure what is the right term here) on the GitHub 3 days ago, we did not see this. We will definitely reach out for further discussion.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- alexeldeib 8y ago
  This looks awesome. Do you know what the latest status on this is?
sytse 8y ago
At GitLab we're really excited about the vision of Crossplane. Multi-cloud seems to be the future [0]. This is the missing technology to make that convenient. Our first step is to work with Bassam to become the first complex application deployed in this way. We already have a popular helm chart. But that doesn't set you up with things like object storage and a cloud managed databases (PostgreSQL and Redis). After we make that work we will integrate Crossplane in Auto DevOps [1] so you achieve application portability for the apps you make in GitLab. The most interesting thing to me is that Crossplane works outside Kubernetes since k8s is another service it will provision. Bassam his plan is to make crossplane + Kube-api more tightly integrated, maybe even a crossplaned at somepoint. 0. https://medium.com/gitlab-magazine/multi-cloud-maturity-model-2de185c01dd7 https://medium.com/gitlab-magazine/multi-cloud-maturity-mode... 1. https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/ https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/
- drieddust 8y ago
  What is the business model of upbound/Crossplane? Product seems to be free.
  - bassamtabbara 8y ago
    hi bassam here (CEO @ Upbound). Our business model is still firming up, but we're thinking we would be hosting crossplanes among other things. We want the crossplane project to be community driven (and not vendor driven) and welcome other contributors (see our governance model).
    - drieddust 8y ago
      Thanks but aren't you worried about someone else hosting your product and competing with you.
      - paulsutter 8y ago
        Crossplane could be one package that customers would not want to use directly from a major cloud provider. You'd never trust AWS/Google/etc to really give equal footing to a competitor. Separately, I'd prefer to trust the company behind the open source software as opposed to some other upstart. So this model may really work. One observation: Crossplane and Upbound seem a little too unrelated of names. Github has benefitted from being almost synonymous with git (admittedly, Github also created the opening for Gitlab at the same time).
delf 8y ago
What are the benefits of using Crossplane as opposed to Terraform?
- regnerba 8y ago
  It seems like you would still use both. Terraform to provision your Kubernetes cluster and other non-application specific infrastructure. It seems like, and I have only briefly read the article, Crossplane is meant to bring all that application specific cloud infrastructure into the same configuration files you would use for defining you Kubernetes application. So along with defining your ingress you define your mysql database and it gets provisioned. This keeps all your application specific provisioning together instead of having to use Terraform to provision your database ahead of time and keep it in sync with the application.
- sytse 8y ago
  See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18603051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18603051
jrudolph 8y ago
This looks really exciting and congratulations on launching! We will definitely be taking a look at this as it looks like a great fit to recommend to our customers. My startup Meshcloud [0] is helping companies manage the "organizational" side of multi-cloud like integrating account provisioning, SSO, policies, chargeback, quotas etc. using a declarative orchestration approach we call "org as code" (basically infrastructure as code but for org stuff). Our product is e.g. used by a large german car manufacturer to orchestrate hundreds of tenants across AWS, Azure and a mix of private Clouds based on OpenStack, Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry. Workload orchestration is obviously the next challenge down the road for these customers, so we're currently looking at providing good integration to tools like Open Service Broker API, Terraform, Bosh, Spinnaker etc. Each of those solves a slightly different set of problems but at the scale our customers are operating at they all have their place. 0. https://www.meshcloud.io/en/meshcloud/ https://www.meshcloud.io/en/meshcloud/
- whalesalad 8y ago
  Your comment here did a better job explaining your product than the website.
robeastham 8y ago
Anyone care to comment on whether this complements or competes with Rancher 2.0?
- yuchi 8y ago
  It looks perfectly parallel as far as I can see. Very interested in answers here too.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  Seems to me you would run this on a Rancher 2.0 cluster, and then get automagically provisioned databases. It extends the default kube system, and Rancher just provides an interface to that.
sigi45 8y ago
Why do i need to configure a mysql database for a wordpress if that wordpress always needs a mysql database? While i really like the idea, i'm looking forward to see if we moved our problems down to the operator code or if those configuration problems are gone.
- merlincorey 8y ago
  Wordpress supports MySQL or MariahDB. Other software supports multiple database systems. There are opinionated packages of the sort you are looking for, I think, perhaps you would be interested in sandstorm.io?
andrewstuart 8y ago
It's a missed opportunity to link your blog back to blog.upboundio instead of to www.upbound.io Blog posts often lead me to wonder what the product is, so it should be convenient to find out.
tybit 8y ago
I really like idea of separating a service’s infra requirements from it’s infra implementation details. > Crossplane supports a clean separation of concerns between developers and administrators. If I’ve understood correctly im not sure this is the best way to sell the idea though. How does this work in a world where developers administer their own services?
- bassamtabbara 8y ago
  > How does this work in a world where developer administer their own services? in that world the developer plays admin too, and can configure crossplane as an admin.
mozey 8y ago
So I could use this to setup a local dev env? Instead of using something like https://github.com/localstack/localstack https://github.com/localstack/localstack

185 points by sytse 8y ago

kubletizer 8y ago

So how is this different from AWS Operator?

bassamtabbara 8y ago
Hi, this bassam (one of the maintainers on crossplane). We describe the relationship in our arch doc here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1whncqdUeU2cATGEJhHvzXWC9xdK29Er45NJeoemxebo/edit# https://docs.google.com/document/d/1whncqdUeU2cATGEJhHvzXWC9.... The following snippet is from that doc: The AWS Service Operator is a recent project that implements a set of Kubernetes controllers that are able to provision managed services in AWS. It defines a set of CRDs for managed services like DynamoDB, and controllers that can provision them via AWS CloudFormation. It is similar to Crossplane in that it can provision managed services in AWS. Crossplane goes a lot further by offering workload portability across cloud multiple cloud providers, separation of concern, and a scheduler for workload and resources.
philips 8y ago
This looks to work similarly to the Persistent Volumes in Kubernetes. To put it into OOP language Kubernetes persistent storage is modeled as an abstract class and a set of concrete types that implement a class. The advantage of this model is that an application requests the "Large and Slow Disk Class" not knowing how it works on each environment and a cluster owner then describes how to configure a spinning disk EC2 Storage to fulfill this class. So, the AWS Operator lets people use the Kubernetes APIs to configure AWS resources. But, if you use those APIs directly in say your Helm chart then your app won't be able to be configured and deployed on other cloud providers without editing those objects. Is it important to your application to be loosely coupled to the cloud provider? Then you need this sort of abstraction to enable portability. It sort of continues the Kubernetes vision beyond computer/network/storage into other cloud services like databases/serverless/AI/etc.
mfer 8y ago
The AWS operator targets AWS resources. You can't take them, in a general sense, to minikube, Azure, or elsewhere. It's declarative to AWS services. Some would call the AWS operator as a form of vendor lock-in. I think the idea here is about using services with portable apps across cloud provider.
- la6470 8y ago
  who is going to provide support on this? is it the one man band called bassam? This whole open cloud cross platform bullshit reminds me of the time when some idiots used to write the same application to run on top of linux windows and AIX without any real business need and wasted a bunch of money and time in the whole process.

scarejunba 8y ago

I thought it was going to be a cross-cloud Terraform, but it looks like it's a bunch of presets operating on k8s? So when he asks for the DB, is he getting an RDS/CloudSQL/whatever or is it spinning up a DB on an EKS/GKE/whatever? I really don't like the latter in comparison to the former, tbh.

bassamtabbara 8y ago
scarejunba, this bassam (one of the maintainers on crossplane). when you ask for a DB you get an instance of RDS/CloudSQL/etc., in other words you are using the managed services of your cloud provider. we're just getting started with cross-cloud scenarios. would love your feedback on https://github.com/crossplaneio/crossplane https://github.com/crossplaneio/crossplane
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Oh, I get it. Reading the design document[0] helped greatly. Should've done more than skim the blogpost. The definition of what you want is specified as a custom resource that is cloud-agnostic. Then a set of cloud-specific custom controllers are installed on a K8s instance and they control which cloud is affected by your `kubectl apply`. You have to set up your own k8s manually (there's no way to bootstrap), but then it's all fun and games. Nice. Very clever. 0: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1whncqdUeU2cATGEJhHvzXWC9xdK29Er45NJeoemxebo/edit#heading=h.annq8ww6da48 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1whncqdUeU2cATGEJhHvzXWC9...
GordonS 8y ago
> I thought it was going to be a cross-cloud Terraform Isn't Terraform already cross-cloud?
- sytse 8y ago
  From the architecture document: Terraform is a popular tool for provisioning infrastructure across cloud providers. It offers a declarative configuration language with support for templating, composability, referential integrity and dependency management. Terraform can dynamically provision infrastructure and perform changes when the tool is run by a human. Unlike Crossplane, Terraform does not support workload portability across cloud providers, and does not have any active controllers that can react to failures, or make changes to running infrastructure without human intervention. Terraform attempts to solve multicloud at the tool level, while Crossplane is at the API and control plane level. Terraform is open source under a MPL license, and follows an open core business model, with a number of its features closed source. We are evaluating whether we can use Terraform to accelerate the development of resource controllers in Crossplane.

mfer 8y ago

This looks fairly similar to the new Kuberentes KEP for portable service definitions.... https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/blob/master/keps/sig-apps/0032-portable-service-definitions.md https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/blob/master/keps/...

dylanz 8y ago
Very similar. Can someone more familiar with Crossplane/KEP comment?
- ichekrygin 8y ago
  Hi, this is ichekrygin (crossplane maintainer). Yes, indeed. There appears to be an overlap in general principles (even in use-case example). From what it appears, KEP sig was "published/released" (not sure what is the right term here) on the GitHub 3 days ago, we did not see this. However, now since it out there, we will definitely reach out to discuss.
- bassamtabbara 8y ago
  Yes, indeed. There appears to be an overlap in general principles (even in use-case example). From what it appears, KEP sig was "published/released" (not sure what is the right term here) on the GitHub 3 days ago, we did not see this. We will definitely reach out for further discussion.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
alexeldeib 8y ago
This looks awesome. Do you know what the latest status on this is?

sytse 8y ago

At GitLab we're really excited about the vision of Crossplane. Multi-cloud seems to be the future [0]. This is the missing technology to make that convenient. Our first step is to work with Bassam to become the first complex application deployed in this way. We already have a popular helm chart. But that doesn't set you up with things like object storage and a cloud managed databases (PostgreSQL and Redis). After we make that work we will integrate Crossplane in Auto DevOps [1] so you achieve application portability for the apps you make in GitLab. The most interesting thing to me is that Crossplane works outside Kubernetes since k8s is another service it will provision. Bassam his plan is to make crossplane + Kube-api more tightly integrated, maybe even a crossplaned at somepoint. 0. https://medium.com/gitlab-magazine/multi-cloud-maturity-model-2de185c01dd7 https://medium.com/gitlab-magazine/multi-cloud-maturity-mode... 1. https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/ https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/

drieddust 8y ago
What is the business model of upbound/Crossplane? Product seems to be free.
- bassamtabbara 8y ago
  hi bassam here (CEO @ Upbound). Our business model is still firming up, but we're thinking we would be hosting crossplanes among other things. We want the crossplane project to be community driven (and not vendor driven) and welcome other contributors (see our governance model).
  - drieddust 8y ago
    Thanks but aren't you worried about someone else hosting your product and competing with you.
    - paulsutter 8y ago
      Crossplane could be one package that customers would not want to use directly from a major cloud provider. You'd never trust AWS/Google/etc to really give equal footing to a competitor. Separately, I'd prefer to trust the company behind the open source software as opposed to some other upstart. So this model may really work. One observation: Crossplane and Upbound seem a little too unrelated of names. Github has benefitted from being almost synonymous with git (admittedly, Github also created the opening for Gitlab at the same time).

delf 8y ago

What are the benefits of using Crossplane as opposed to Terraform?

regnerba 8y ago
It seems like you would still use both. Terraform to provision your Kubernetes cluster and other non-application specific infrastructure. It seems like, and I have only briefly read the article, Crossplane is meant to bring all that application specific cloud infrastructure into the same configuration files you would use for defining you Kubernetes application. So along with defining your ingress you define your mysql database and it gets provisioned. This keeps all your application specific provisioning together instead of having to use Terraform to provision your database ahead of time and keep it in sync with the application.
sytse 8y ago
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18603051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18603051

jrudolph 8y ago

This looks really exciting and congratulations on launching! We will definitely be taking a look at this as it looks like a great fit to recommend to our customers. My startup Meshcloud [0] is helping companies manage the "organizational" side of multi-cloud like integrating account provisioning, SSO, policies, chargeback, quotas etc. using a declarative orchestration approach we call "org as code" (basically infrastructure as code but for org stuff). Our product is e.g. used by a large german car manufacturer to orchestrate hundreds of tenants across AWS, Azure and a mix of private Clouds based on OpenStack, Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry. Workload orchestration is obviously the next challenge down the road for these customers, so we're currently looking at providing good integration to tools like Open Service Broker API, Terraform, Bosh, Spinnaker etc. Each of those solves a slightly different set of problems but at the scale our customers are operating at they all have their place. 0. https://www.meshcloud.io/en/meshcloud/ https://www.meshcloud.io/en/meshcloud/

whalesalad 8y ago
Your comment here did a better job explaining your product than the website.

robeastham 8y ago

Anyone care to comment on whether this complements or competes with Rancher 2.0?

yuchi 8y ago
It looks perfectly parallel as far as I can see. Very interested in answers here too.
Aeolun 8y ago
Seems to me you would run this on a Rancher 2.0 cluster, and then get automagically provisioned databases. It extends the default kube system, and Rancher just provides an interface to that.

sigi45 8y ago

Why do i need to configure a mysql database for a wordpress if that wordpress always needs a mysql database? While i really like the idea, i'm looking forward to see if we moved our problems down to the operator code or if those configuration problems are gone.

merlincorey 8y ago
Wordpress supports MySQL or MariahDB. Other software supports multiple database systems. There are opinionated packages of the sort you are looking for, I think, perhaps you would be interested in sandstorm.io?

andrewstuart 8y ago

It's a missed opportunity to link your blog back to blog.upboundio instead of to www.upbound.io Blog posts often lead me to wonder what the product is, so it should be convenient to find out.

tybit 8y ago

I really like idea of separating a service’s infra requirements from it’s infra implementation details. > Crossplane supports a clean separation of concerns between developers and administrators. If I’ve understood correctly im not sure this is the best way to sell the idea though. How does this work in a world where developers administer their own services?

bassamtabbara 8y ago
> How does this work in a world where developer administer their own services? in that world the developer plays admin too, and can configure crossplane as an admin.

mozey 8y ago

So I could use this to setup a local dev env? Instead of using something like https://github.com/localstack/localstack https://github.com/localstack/localstack