Paved Paths to Production – There and Back Again

There’s no place like production. Any idea, any code change will not deliver value until it reaches production. How can we go there fast and securely? A path to production includes all the activities to deliver a new idea to the software users.

The first challenge will be to provide application developers with a compelling experience that enhances the inner development loop, improves their productivity, and reduces their cognitive load. You’ll see how to design such an experience using Backstage, Buildpacks, and Knative.

The second challenge will be establishing secure and reusable CI/CD pipelines while ensuring a clear separation of concerns. You’ll see how to do that by building on top of the inner loop and adding Tekton, Trivy, and Argo CD. Application operators and security engineers will be responsible for those pipelines and the supply chain, taking care of all the activities for building, testing, securing, configuring, and ultimately deploying workloads.

The third challenge will be to offer paved paths to production as a coherent service via a platform based on different tools from the cloud native ecosystem. You’ll learn about the concept of golden paths enabled by Backstage and see how to implement them using Cartographer, a framework to build paths to production.

Transcript

1. Thomas Vitale Cloud Native Rejekts Apr 16th, 2023 Paved Paths to Production @vitalethomas There and Back Again
2. Systematic • Software Engineer and Cloud Architect. • Author of “Cloud Native Spring in Action” (Manning). • OSS contributor (Java, Spring, Cloud Native Technologies) Thomas Vitale thomasvitale.com @vitalethomas
3. Problem @vitalethomas
4. Value @vitalethomas
5. Delivering Value From idea to production Developer Production Idea @vitalethomas ?
6. Goals 2 Reduced cognitive load 3 Clear and safe path to production 1 Rapid and continuous feedback loop @vitalethomas
7. Development Workflow @vitalethomas
8. Cloud Native @vitalethomas
9. @vitalethomas Runtime (Language) Application (Executable) Cloud Native Applications
10. Containers @vitalethomas
11. Moving to Containers @vitalethomas Runtime (Language) Application (Executable) Runtime (OCI) Application (Container)
12. Cloud Native Buildpacks @vitalethomas
13. Image pack build Cloud Native Buildpacks From source code to container image @vitalethomas
14. Kubernetes @vitalethomas
15. Moving to Kubernetes @vitalethomas Runtime (Language) Application (Executable) Runtime (OCI) Application (Container) Runtime (OCI) Middleware (Kubernetes) Application (Container)
16. Tilt @vitalethomas
17. Tilt Continuous development on Kubernetes @vitalethomas CODE BUILD RUN TEST
18. Goals 2 Reduced cognitive load 3 Clear and safe path to production 1 Rapid and continuous feedback loop @vitalethomas
19. CI/CD Pipeline(s) @vitalethomas
20. CI/CD Pipeline (Imperative) Check out source code Build container image Con fi gure workload Deploy workload Orchestrator Tightly coupled Rigid system No clear separation of concerns Hard to maintain @vitalethomas
21. Delivering Value From code to production Developer Production Application Operator Security Expert Platform Engineer @vitalethomas
22. Check out source code Build container image Con fi gure workload Deploy workload @vitalethomas
23. Check out source code Build container image Con fi gure workload Deploy workload Kubernetes Manifests GitOps @vitalethomas
24. Check out source code Build container image Con fi gure workload Deploy workload Kubernetes Manifests Container Image
25. Check out source code Build container image Con fi gure workload Deploy workload Kubernetes Manifests Container Image Source Code CI/CD Pipeline (Reactive) Loosely coupled Separation of concerns Flexible Consistent path to production
26. Check out source code Build container image Con fi gure workload Deploy workload Kubernetes Manifests Container Image Source Code CI/CD Pipeline (Reactive) Loosely coupled Separation of concerns Flexible Consistent path to production
27. Cartographer @vitalethomas
28. Kubernetes Native Choreographer Framework to build paved paths to production @vitalethomas
29. Workload API Developer-friendly interface @vitalethomas apiVersion: carto.run/v1alpha1 kind: Workload metadata: name: band-service labels: apps.kadras.io/workload-type: web spec: source: git: url: https://github.com/ThomasVitale/band-service ref: branch: main
30. Watch Source Code Testing Build Con fi guration Deployment @vitalethomas
31. https://landscape.cncf.io
32. SupplyChain API Describes the path to production @vitalethomas apiVersion: carto.run/v1alpha1 kind: ClusterSupplyChain metadata: name: supply-chain spec: selector: apps.kadras.io/workload-type: web resources: - name: source-provider templateRef: kind: ClusterSourceTemplate name: source - name: image-builder templateRef: kind: ClusterImageTemplate name: image sources: - resource: source-provider name: source - name: deployer templateRef: kind: ClusterTemplate name: app-deploy images: - resource: image-builder name: image
33. Watch Source Code Testing Build Con fi guration Deployment @vitalethomas
34. @vitalethomas apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1 kind: GitRepository metadata: name: band-service spec: interval: 1m0s url: https://github.com/ThomasVitale/band-service ref: branch: main
35. @vitalethomas apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1 kind: GitRepository metadata: name: $(workload.metadata.name)$ spec: interval: 1m0s url: $(workload.spec.source.git.url)$ ref: $(workload.spec.source.git.ref)$
36. @vitalethomas apiVersion: carto.run/v1alpha1 kind: ClusterSourceTemplate metadata: name: source spec: urlPath: .status.artifact.url revisionPath: .status.artifact.revision template: apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1 kind: GitRepository metadata: name: $(workload.metadata.name)$ spec: interval: 1m0s url: $(workload.spec.source.git.url)$ ref: $(workload.spec.source.git.ref)$
37. @vitalethomas apiVersion: carto.run/v1alpha1 kind: ClusterSourceTemplate metadata: name: source spec: urlPath: .status.artifact.url revisionPath: .status.artifact.revision template: apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1 kind: GitRepository metadata: name: $(workload.metadata.name)$ spec: interval: 1m0s url: $(workload.spec.source.git.url)$ ref: $(workload.spec.source.git.ref)$ Template API Supply chain activities
38. cartographer.sh
39. Capabilities over responsibilities @vitalethomas
40. Developer @vitalethomas
41. Developer Platform @vitalethomas
42. Developer Platform @vitalethomas
43. Goals 2 Reduced cognitive load 3 Clear and safe path to production 1 Rapid and continuous feedback loop @vitalethomas
44. Resources @vitalethomas
45. Resources Source code • Presentation source code • Kadras: Cloud Native Platforms Toolkit • Cloud Native Buildpacks for ARM64 • Software Supply Chain Choreography • Cartographer • Cartographer CLI • Tanzu Application Platform @vitalethomas
46. Thomas Vitale Cloud Native Rejekts Apr 16th, 2023 Paved Paths to Production @vitalethomas There and Back Again