What are the best deployment tools for Helm charts without GitOps?
Asked by
CuriousCactus42
I'm working on a deployment toolchain for our in-house software, which consists of several microservices running on multiple Kubernetes clusters. Each microservice's artifacts, including Docker images and Helm charts, are uploaded to Sonatype Nexus for deployment. My goal is to create a solution that allows non-developers to easily deploy our software via a user-friendly interface, ideally a web-based tool, without relying on CLI tools.
Here's what I need:
- I want to deploy all Helm charts (i.e., microservices) for a product in one go, ensuring each chart has the correct version. This might involve bundling strategies like umbrella charts or helmfile.
- The tool should allow operations teams to start, stop, or restart individual microservices, either by adjusting replicas or redeploying them.
- It should also let us restart all microservices easily.
We're constrained by needing to manually trigger deployments after passing large-scale acceptance tests due to legal reasons, so CI/CD isn't an option for us. The workflow would include generating a manifest of services and versions that can be fed into our deployment tool. Does anyone know of tools that can meet these requirements, or are we stuck building something custom? How do enterprises tackle Kubernetes deployments without GitOps or CLI?
Answers
You might want to check out ArgoCD with the App of Apps pattern. It can manage Helm charts well, though it does have a learning curve. Just keep in mind the concerns about decoupled deployments you pointed out.
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I initially thought about GitOps too, but since you mentioned legal constraints, that makes sense. It sounds like you're looking for tools that don't tie back to Git for deployment actions. Have you looked into using an Operator? They can manage deployments based on custom resources without requiring Git, and they could integrate easily into your workflow.
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