Chapter 3: Resource Provisioning ================================= Resource Provisioning is the process of bringing virtual and physical resources online. It has both a hands-on component (racking and connecting devices) and a bootstrap component (configuring how the resources boot into a "ready" state). Resource Provisioning happens when a cloud deployment is first installed—i.e., an initial set of resources are provisioned—but also incrementally over time as new resources are added, obsolete resources are removed, and out-of-date resources are upgraded. The goal of Resource Provisioning is to be zero-touch, which is impossible for hardware resources because it includes an intrinsically manual step. (We take up the issue of provisioning virtual resources in a moment.) Realistically, the goal is to minimize the number and complexity of configuration steps required beyond physically connecting the device, keeping in mind that we are starting with commodity hardware received directly from a vendor, and not a plug-and-play appliance that has already been prepped. When a cloud is built from virtual resources (e.g., VMs instantiated on a commercial cloud) the "rack and connect" step is carried out by a sequence of API calls rather than a hands-on technician. Of course, we want to automate the sequence of calls needed to activate virtual infrastructure, which has inspired an approach known as *Infrastructure-as-Code*, a special case of the *Configuration-as-Code* concept introduced in Chapter 2. The general idea is to document, in a declarative format that can be "executed", exactly what our infrastructure is to look like; how it is to be configured. We use Terraform as our open source approach to Infrastructure-as-Code. When a cloud is built from a combination of virtual and physical resources, as is the case for a hybrid cloud like Aether, we need a seamless way to accommodate both. To this end, our approach is to first overlay a *logical structure* on top of hardware resources, making them roughly equivalent to the virtual resources we get from a commercial cloud provider. This results in a hybrid scenario similar to the one shown in :numref:`Figure %s `. We use NetBox as our open source solution for layering this logical structure on top of physical hardware. NetBox also helps us address the requirement of tracking physical inventory. .. _fig-infra: .. figure:: figures/Slide19.png :width: 450px :align: center Resource Provisioning in a hybrid cloud that includes both physical and virtual resources. Note that the Provisioning API shown on the right in :numref:`Figure %s ` is *not* the NetBox API. Terraform does not interact directly with NetBox, but instead with artifacts left behind by the hardware provisioning process described in Section 3.1. One way to think about this is that the task of booting hardware into the "ready" state involves installing and configuring several subsystems that collectively form the cloud platform. It is this platform that Terraform interacts with, using an API we describe at the end of Section 3.1. This chapter describes both sides of :numref:`Figure %s ` starting with provisioning physical infrastructure. Our approach is to focus on the challenge of provisioning an entire site the first time. We comment on the simpler problem of incrementally provisioning individual resources as relevant details emerge. 3.1 Physical Infrastructure --------------------------- The process of stacking and racking hardware is inherently human-intensive, and includes considerations such as airflow and cable management. These issues are beyond the scope of this book. We focus instead on the "physical/virtual" boundary, which starts with the cabling plan that a hands-on technician uses as a blueprint. The details of such a plan are highly deployment-specific, but we use the example shown in :numref:`Figure %s ` to help illustrate all the steps involved. The example is based on Aether clusters deployed in enterprises, which serves to highlight the required level of specificity. Considerable planning is required to specify an appropriate *Bill of Materials (BOM)*, including details about individual device models, but this aspect of the problem is also outside our scope. .. _fig-cable_plan: .. figure:: figures/pronto_logical_diagram.png :width: 700px :align: center Example network cable plan for an edge cluster. The blueprint shown in :numref:`Figure %s ` actually includes two logical clusters sharing a Management Switch and a Management Server. The upper cluster corresponds to a production deployment, and includes five servers and a 2x2 leaf-spine switching fabric. The lower cluster is for development, and includes two servers and a single switch. Defining such logical groupings of hardware resources is not unique to Aether; we can ask a commercial cloud provider to provision multiple logical clusters, so being able to do the same on physical resources is a natural requirement. In addition to following this blueprint, the technician also enters various facts about the physical infrastructure into a database. This information, which is used in later provisioning steps, is where we pick up the story. 3.1.1 Document Infrastructure ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Documenting the physical infrastructure's logical structure in a database is how we cross the physical-to-virtual divide. It involves both defining a set of models for the information being collected (this schema effectively represents the logical structure shown in :numref:`Figure %s `), and entering the corresponding facts about the physical devices. This process is familiar to anyone who is responsible for managing a network of devices, whether it is the first stage in a larger automated framework (such as the one described in this book) or simply a place to record what IP address has been assigned to each network appliance. There are several open source tools available for this task. Our choice is NetBox. It supports IP address management (IPAM); inventory-related information about types of devices and where they are installed; how infrastructure is organized (racked) by group and site; and how devices are connected to consoles, networks, and power sources. More information is readily available on the NetBox web site. .. _reading_netbox: .. admonition:: Further Reading `NetBox: `_ Information Resource Modeling Application. One of the key features of NetBox is the ability to customize the set of models used to organize all the information that is collected. For example, an operator can define physical groupings like *Rack* and *Site*, but also logical groupings like *Organization* and *Deployment*.\ [#]_ In the following we use the Aether cable plan shown in :numref:`Figure %s ` as an illustrative example, focusing on what happens when provisioning a single Aether site (but keeping in mind that Aether spans multiple sites, as outlined in Chapter 2). .. [#] In this section, we denote models and model fields in italics (e.g., *Site*, *Address*) and specific values assigned to an instance of a model as a constant (e.g., ``10.0.0.0/22``). The first step is to create a record for the site being provisioned, and document all the relevant metadata for that site. This includes the *Name* and *Location* of the *Site*, along with the *Organization* the site belongs to. An *Organization* can have more than one *Site*, while a *Site* can (a) span one or more *Racks*, and (b) host one or more *Deployments*. A *Deployment* is a logical cluster, corresponding, for example, to ``Production``, ``Staging``, and ``Development``. The cabling plan shown in :numref:`Figure %s ` includes two such deployments. This is also the time to specify the VLANs and IP Prefixes assigned to this particular edge deployment. Because it is important to maintain a clear relationship between VLANs, IP Prefixes, and DNS names (the last of which are auto-generated), it is helpful to walk through the following concrete example. We start with the minimal set of VLANs needed per Site: * ADMIN 1 * UPLINK 10 * MGMT 800 * FABRIC 801 These are Aether-specific, but they illustrate the set of VLANs a cluster might need. Minimally, one would expect to see a "management" network (MGMT in this example) and a "data" network (FABRIC in this example) in any cluster. Also specific to Aether (but generally applicable), if there are multiple Deployments at a Site sharing a single management server, additional VLANs (incremented by 10 for MGMT/FABRIC) are added. For example, a second ``Development`` deployment might define: * DEVMGMT 810 * DEVFABRIC 811 IP Prefixes are then associated with VLANs, with all edge IP prefixes fitting into a ``/22`` sized block. This block is then partitioned in a way that works in concert with how DNS names are managed; i.e., names are generated by combining the first ```` component of the *Device* names (see below) with this suffix. Using ``10.0.0.0/22`` as an example, there are four edge prefixes, with the following purposes: * ADMIN Prefix ``10.0.0.0/25`` (for IPMI) * Has the Management Server and Management Switch * Assign the ADMIN 1 VLAN * Set domain to ``admin...aetherproject.net`` * MGMT Prefix ``10.0.0.128/25`` (for infrastructure control plane) * Has the Server Management plane, Fabric Switch Management * Assign MGMT 800 VLAN * Set domain to ``mgmt...aetherproject.net`` * FABRIC Prefix ``10.0.1.0/25`` (for infrastructure data plane) * IP addresses of the ``qsfp0`` port of the Compute Nodes to Fabric switches, plus other Fabric-connected devices (e.g., eNB) * Assign FABRIC 801 VLAN * Set domain to ``fab1...aetherproject.net`` * FABRIC Prefix ``10.0.1.128/25`` (for infrastructure data plane) * IP addresses of the ``qsfp1`` port of the Compute Nodes to fabric switches * Assign FABRIC 801 VLAN * Set domain to ``fab2...aetherproject.net`` There are other edge prefixes used by Kubernetes, but they do not need to be created in NetBox. Note that ``qsfp0`` and ``qsfp1`` in this example denote transceiver ports connecting the switching fabric, where *QSFP* stands for Quad (4-channel) Small Form-factor Pluggable. With this site-wide information recorded, the next step is to install and document each *Device*. This includes entering a ````, which is subsequently used to generate a fully qualified domain name for the device: ``...aetherproject.net``. The following fields are also filled in when creating a Device: * Site * Rack & Rack Position * Manufacturer * Model * Serial number * Device Type * MAC Addresses Note there is typically both a primary and a management (e.g., BMC/IPMI) interface. One convenience feature of NetBox is to use the *Device Type* as a template that sets the default naming of interfaces, power connections, and other equipment model specific attributes. Finally, the virtual interfaces for the Device must be specified, with its *Label* field set to the physical network interface that it is assigned. IP addresses are then assigned to the physical and virtual interfaces we have defined. The Management Server should always have the first IP address within each prefix, and by convention they are assigned incrementally as follows: * Management Server * ``eno1`` - site provided public IP address, or blank if DHCP provided * ``eno2`` - 10.0.0.1/25 (first of ADMIN) - set as primary IP * ``bmc`` - 10.0.0.2/25 (next of ADMIN) * ``mgmt800`` - 10.0.0.129/25 (first of MGMT, on VLAN 800) * ``fab801`` - 10.0.1.1/25 (first of FABRIC, on VLAN 801) * Management Switch * ``gbe1`` - 10.0.0.3/25 (next of ADMIN) - set as primary IP * Fabric Switch * ``eth0`` - 10.0.0.130/25 (next of MGMT), set as primary IP * ``bmc`` - 10.0.0.131/25 * Compute Server * ``eth0`` - 10.0.0.132/25 (next of MGMT), set as primary IP * ``bmc`` - 10.0.0.4/25 (next of ADMIN) * ``qsfp0`` - 10.0.1.2/25 (next of FABRIC) * ``qsfp1`` - 10.0.1.3/25 * Other Fabric devices (eNB, etc.) * ``eth0`` or other primary interface - 10.0.1.4/25 (next of FABRIC) Once this data is entered into NetBox, it can be used to generate a rack diagram, similar to the one shown in :numref:`Figure %s `, corresponding to the cabling diagram shown in :numref:`Figure %s `. Note that the diagram shows two logical *Deployments* (``Production`` and ``Development``), co-located in one physical rack. .. _fig-rack_diagram: .. figure:: figures/rack_diagram.png :width: 500px :align: center NetBox rendering of rack configuration. It is also possible to generate other useful specifications for the deployment, helping the technician confirm the recorded logical specification matches the actual physical representation. For example, :numref:`Figure %s ` shows the set of cables and how they connect the set of hardware in our example deployment. .. _fig-cable_list: .. figure:: figures/cable_list.png :width: 700px :align: center NetBox report of cabling. If all of this seems like a tedious amount of detail, then you get the main point of this section. Everything about automating the control and management of a cloud hinges on having complete and accurate data about its resources. Keeping this information in sync with the reality of the physical infrastructure is often the weakest link in this process. The only saving grace is that the information is highly structured, and tools like NetBox help us codify this structure. 3.1.2 Configure and Boot ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After installing the hardware and recording the relevant facts about the installation, the next step is to configure and boot the hardware so that it is "ready" for the automated procedures that follow. The goal is to minimize manual configuration required to onboard physical infrastructure like that shown in :numref:`Figure %s `, but *zero-touch* is a high bar. To illustrate, the bootstrapping steps needed to complete provisioning for our example deployment currently include: * Configure the Management Switch to know the set of VLANs being used. * Configure the Management Server so it boots from a provided USB key. * Run Ansible roles and playbooks needed to complete configuration onto the Management Server. * Configure the Compute Servers so they boot from the Management Server (via iPXE). * Configure the Fabric Switches so they boot from the Management Server (via Nginx). * Configure the eNBs (mobile base stations) so they know their IP addresses. These are all manual configuration steps, requiring either console access or entering information into a device web interface, such that any subsequent configuration steps can be both fully automated and resilient. Note that while these steps cannot be automated away, they do not necessarily have to be performed in the field; hardware shipped to a remote site can first be prepped accordingly. Also note that care should be taken to *not* overload this step with configuration that can be done later. For example, various radio parameters can be set on the eNBs when it is physically installed, but those parameters will become settable through the Management Platform once the cluster is brought online. Manual configuration work done at this stage should be minimized, and most systems should use automated means of configuration. For example, using DHCP pervasively with MAC reservations for IP address assignment instead of manual configuration of each interface allows for management to be zero-touch and simplifies future reconfiguration. The automated aspects of configuration are implemented as a set of Ansible *roles* and *playbooks*, which in terms of the high-level overview shown in :numref:`Figure %s ` of Chapter 2, corresponds to the box representing the *"Zero-Touch Provision (System)"*. Said another way, there is no off-the-shelf ZTP solution we can use (i.e., someone has to write the playbooks), but the problem is greatly simplified by having access to all the configuration parameters that NetBox maintains. The general idea is as follows. For every network service (e.g., DNS, DHCP, iPXE, Nginx) and every per-device subsystem (e.g., network interfaces, Docker) that needs to be configured, there is a corresponding Ansible role and playbook.\ [#]_ These configurations are applied to the Management Server during the manual configuration stage summarized above, once the management network is online. .. [#] We gloss over the distinction between *roles* and *playbooks* in Ansible, and focus on the general idea of there being a *script* that runs with a set of input parameters. The Ansible playbooks install and configure the network services on the Management Server. The role of DNS and DHCP are obvious. As for iPXE and Nginx, they are used to bootstrap the rest of the infrastructure. The compute servers are configured by iPXE delivered over DHCP/TFTP, and then load the scripted OS installation from a Nginx web server. The fabric switches load their Stratum OS package from Nginx. In many cases, the playbooks use parameters—such as VLANs, IP addresses, DNS names, and so on—extracted from NetBox. :numref:`Figure %s ` illustrates the approach, and fills in a few details. For example, a home-grown Python program (``edgeconfig.py``) extracts data from NetBox using the REST API and outputs a corresponding set of YAML files, crafted to serve as input to Ansible, which creates yet more configuration on the management and compute systems. One example of this is the *Netplan* file, which is used in Ubuntu to manage network interfaces. More information about Ansible and Netplan can be found on their respective web sites. .. _reading_ansible: .. admonition:: Further Reading `Ansible: `_ Automation Platform. `Netplan: `_ Network Configuration Abstraction Renderer. .. _fig-ansible: .. figure:: figures/Slide20.png :width: 550px :align: center Configuring network services and OS-level subsystems using NetBox data. While :numref:`Figure %s ` highlights how Ansible is paired with Netplan to configure kernel-level details, there is also an Ansible playbook that installs Docker on each compute server and fabric switch, and then launches a Docker container running a "finalize" image. This image makes calls into the next layer of the provisioning stack, effectively signaling that the cluster is running and ready for further instructions. We are now ready to describe that next layer of the stack. 3.1.3 Provisioning API ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As a result of the steps described so far, we can assume each server and switch is up and running, but we still have a little work to do to prepare our bare-metal clusters for the next layer in the provisioning stack, essentially establishing parity between the left- and right-hand sides of the hybrid cloud shown in :numref:`Figure %s `. If you ask yourself *"What would Google do?"* this reduces to the task of setting up a GCP-like API for the bare-metal edge clouds. This API primarily subsumes the Kubernetes API, but it goes beyond providing a way to *use* Kubernetes to also include calls to *manage* Kubernetes. In short, this "manage Kubernetes" task is to turn a set of interconnected servers and switches into a fully-instantiated Kubernetes cluster. For starters, the API needs to provide a means to install and configure Kubernetes on each physical cluster. This includes specifying which version of Kubernetes to run, selecting the right combination of Container Network Interface (CNI) plugins (virtual network adapters), and connecting Kubernetes to the local network (and any VPNs it might need). This layer also needs to provide a means to set up accounts (and associated credentials) for accessing and using each Kubernetes cluster, and a way to manage independent projects that are to be deployed on a given cluster (i.e., manage namespaces for multiple applications). As an example, Aether currently uses Rancher to manage Kubernetes on the bare-metal clusters, with one centralized instance of Rancher being responsible for managing all the edge sites. This results in the configuration shown in :numref:`Figure %s `, which to emphasize Rancher's scope, shows multiple edge clusters. Although not shown in the Figure, the GCP-provided API, just like Rancher, also spans multiple physical sites (e.g., ``us-west1-a``, ``europe-north1-b``, ``asia-south2-c``, and so on). .. _fig-rancher: .. figure:: figures/Slide21.png :width: 450px :align: center Provisioning in a hybrid cloud that includes an API layer for managing Kubernetes running on multiple bare-metal clusters. We conclude this discussion by noting that while we often treat Kubernetes as though it is an industry-wide standard, that is not quite the reality of the situation. Each cloud provider offers its own customized version: * Microsoft Azure offers the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) * AWS offers the Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) * Google Cloud offers the Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) * Aether edges run the Rancher-certified version of Kubernetes (RKE) Although the *CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation)*—the open source organization responsible for shepherding the Kubernetes project—certifies these and other versions of Kubernetes, this only establishes baseline compliance. Each version if free to enhance their offering beyond this baseline, and these enhancements often take the form of additional features for provisioning and controlling a Kubernetes cluster. Our job at the cloud management layer is to provide operators with a means to manage this heterogeneity. And as we'll see in Section 3.2, this is the primary challenge addressed by the Infrastructure-as-Code layer. 3.1.4 Provisioning VMs ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We conclude our discussion of the steps required to provision physical machines by considering the implications of provisioning virtual machines, or VMs. That's something that happens "behind the scenes" when you request a Kubernetes cluster from AKS, EKS, or GKE, but that's because the hyperscalers have the option of layering their Kubernetes service on top of their Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Do we need something similar for the edge cloud we're building? Not necessarily. Because our goal is to support a curated set of edge services that provide value to our enterprise users, and not to support Container-as-a-Service so untrusted third-parties can spin up whatever applications they want, we do not need to manage VMs "as a service." But we still may want to use VMs as a way to isolate Kubernetes workloads on a limited number of physical servers. This can be done as a provisioning step, akin to connecting and booting a physical machine, but using virtualization mechanisms like KVM and Proxmox. There is no need for a full-fledged IaaS mechanism, such as OpenStack. These VMs would then be recorded as first-class cloud resource in NetBox and the other tools described in this section, no different from a physical machine. The unanswered question is why one might decide to do that, considering that Kubernetes already allows us to deploy multiple applications on a single cluster. One reason is to support fine-grained resource isolation, making it possible to (a) ensure that each Kubernetes application receives the processor, memory, and storage resources it needs to do its job, and (b) reduce the risk of information leaking between the applications. Suppose, for example, that in addition to SD-Fabric, SD-RAN and SD-Core workloads that run (by default) on each edge site, we also want to run one or more other edge apps, such as the OpenVINO platform introduced in Section 2.3. To ensure that there is no interference between these applications, we could dedicate a subset of physical servers to each of them. Physical partitioning is a coarse-grained way to share the physical cluster. Being able to "split" one or more servers between multiple uses—by instantiating VMs—gives the operator more flexibility in allocating resources, which usually translates into requiring fewer overall resources. Note that there are other ways to specify how cluster resources are shared between applications (which we will see in Section 4.4), but the provisioning layer is one place where the issue can be addressed. 3.2 Infrastructure-as-Code -------------------------- The provisioning interface for each of the Kubernetes variants just described includes a programmatic API, a Command Line Interface (CLI), and a Graphical User Interface (GUI). If you try any of the tutorials we recommended throughout this book, you'll likely use one of the latter two. For operational deployments, however, having a human operator interact with a CLI or GUI is problematic. This is not only because humans are error-prone, but also because it's nearly impossible to consistently repeat a sequence of configuration steps. Being able to continuously repeat the process is at the heart of Lifecycle Management described in the next chapter. The solution is to find a declarative way of saying what your infrastructure is to look like—what set of Kubernetes clusters (e.g., some running at the edges on bare-metal and some instantiated in GCP) are to be instantiated, and how each is to be configured—and then automate the task of making calls against the programmatic API to make it so. This is the essence of Infrastructure-as-Code, and as we've already said, we use Terraform as our open source example. Since Terraform specifications are declarative, the best way to understand them is to walk through a specific example. In doing so, our goal isn't to document Terraform (online documentation and step-by-step tutorials are available for those those interested in more detail), but rather, to build some intuition about the role this layer plays in managing a cloud. .. _reading_terraform: .. admonition:: Further Reading `Terraform Documentation `_. `Terraform Getting Started Tutorials `__. To make sense of the example, the main thing you need to know about the Terraform configuration language is that it provides a means to both (1) specify *templates* for different kinds of resources (these are ``.tf`` files), and (2) fill in the *variables* for specific instances of those resource templates (these are ``.tfvars`` files). Then given a set of ``.tf`` and ``tfvars`` files, Terraform implements a two-stage process. In the first stage it constructs an execution plan, based on what has changed since the previous plan it executed. In the second stage, Terraform carries out the sequence of tasks required to bring the underlying infrastructure "up to spec" with the latest definition. Note that our job, for now, is the write these specification files, and check them into the Config Repo. Terraform gets invoked as part of the CI/CD pipeline described in Chapter 4. Now to the specific files. At the top-most level, the operator defines the set of *providers* they plan to incorporate into their infrastructure. We can think of each provider as corresponding to a cloud backend, including the corresponding provisioning API depicted in :numref:`Figure %s `. In our example, we show only two providers: the Rancher-managed edge clusters and the GCP-managed centralized clusters. Note that the example file declares a set of relevant variables for each provider (e.g., ``url``, ``access-key``), which are "filled in" in by instance-specific variable files described next. .. literalinclude:: code/provider.tf The next step is to fill in the details (define values) for the actual set of clusters we want to provision. Let's look at two examples, corresponding to the two providers we just specified. The first shows a GCP-provided cluster (named ``amp-gcp``) that is to host the AMP workload. (There's a similar ``sdcore-gcp`` that hosts an instance of the SD-Core.) The labels associated with this particular cluster (e.g., ``env = "production"``) establish linkage between Terraform (which assigns the label to each cluster it instantiates) and other layers of the management stack (which selectively take different actions based on the associated labels). We'll see an example of these labels being used in Section 4.4. .. literalinclude:: code/cluster-gcp_val.tfvars The second example shows an edge cluster (named ``ace-X``) to be instantiated at *Site X*. As shown in the example code, this is a bare-metal cluster consisting of five servers and four switches (two leaf switches and two spine switches). The address for each device must match the one assigned during the hardware-provisioning stage outlined in Section 3.1. Ideally, the NetBox (and related) tool chain described in that section would auto-generate these Terraform variables files, but in practice, manually entering the data is often still necessary. .. literalinclude:: code/cluster-edge_val.tfvars The final piece of the puzzle is to to fill in the remaining details about exactly how each Kubernetes cluster is to be instantiated. In this case, we show just the RKE-specific module used to configure the edge clusters, where most of the details are straightforward if you understand Kubernetes. For example, the module specifies that each edge cluster should load the ``calico`` and ``multus`` CNI plugins. It also defines how to invoke ``kubectl`` to configure Kubernetes according to these specifications. Less familiar, all references to ``SCTPSupport`` indicate whether or not that particular Kubernetes cluster needs to support SCTP, a Telco-oriented network protocol that is not included in a vanilla Kubernetes deployment, but is needed by the SD-Core. .. literalinclude:: code/main-rke.tf There are other loose ends that need to be tied up, such as defining the VPN to be used to connect edge clusters to their counterparts in GCP, but the above examples are sufficient to illustrate the role Infrastructure-as-Code plays in the cloud management stack. The key takeaway is that everything Terraform handles could have been done by a human operator making a sequence of CLI calls (or GUI clicks) on the backend Provisioning APIs, but experience has shown that approach to be error-prone and difficult to make consistently repeatable. Starting with declarative language and auto-generating the right sequence of API calls is a proven way to overcome that problem. We conclude by drawing attention to the fact that while we now have a declarative specification for our cloud infrastructure, which we refer to as the *Aether Platform*, these specification files are yet another software artifact that we check into the Config Repo. This is what we mean by Infrastructure-as-Code: infrastructure specifications are checked into a repo and version-controlled like any other code. This repo, in turn, feeds the lifecycle management pipeline described in the next chapter. The physical provisioning steps described in Section 3.1 happen "outside" the pipeline (which is why we don't just fold resource provisioning into Lifecycle Management), but it is fair to think of resource provisioning as "Stage 0" of lifecycle management. 3.3 Platform Definition ------------------------ The art of defining a system architecture, in our case a management framework for a hybrid cloud, is deciding where to draw the line between what's included inside the platform and what is considered an application running on top of the platform. For Aether, we have decided to include SD-Fabric inside the platform (along with Kubernetes), with SD-Core and SD-RAN treated as applications, even though all three are implemented as Kubernetes-based microservices. One consequence of this decision is that SD-Fabric is initialized as part of the provisioning system described in this chapter (with NetBox, Ansible, Rancher, and Terraform playing a role), whereas SD-Core and SD-RAN are deployed using the application-level mechanisms described in Chapter 4. There may also be other edge applications running as Kubernetes workloads, which complicates the story because from their perspective, all of Aether (including the 5G connectivity that SD-Core and SD-RAN implements) is assumed to be part of the platform. In other words, Aether draws two lines, one demarcating Aether's base platform (Kubernetes plus SD-Fabric) and a second demarcating the Aether PaaS (which includes SD-Core and SD-RAN running on top of the platform, plus AMP managing the whole system). The distinction between "base platform" and "PaaS" is subtle, but essentially corresponds to the difference between a software stack and a managed service, respectively. In some respects this is just a matter of terminology, which is certainly important, but the relevance to our discussion is that because we have multiple overlapping mechanisms at our disposal, giving us more than one way to solve each engineering problem we encounter, it is easy to end up with an implementation that unnecessarily conflates separable concerns. Being explicit and consistent about what is platform and what is application is a prerequisite for a sound overall design. It is also important to recognize the difference between an internal engineering decision (e.g., what mechanism is used to deploy a given component), and an externally-visible architectural decision (e.g., what functionality to expose through a public API).