NKE lab series – Ep3: Deep dive into NKE networking with Calico CNI

Thu, 08 Aug 2024 20:11:10 +0000

This is the 3rd episode of our NKE lab series. Previously, I have walked through:

How to deploy a NKE-enabled Kubernetes cluster in a nested Nutanix CE environment
How to provide persistent storage to your NKE clusters using 2x Nutanix CSI options

In this episode, we’ll deep dive into the NKE networking spaces by exploring the following:

PART-1: Exploring Calico CNI deployment models within a NKE cluster
PART-2: Applying standard Kubernetes network policy in a NKE cluster
PART-3: Leveraging Calico specific policies in a NKE cluster

pre-requisites

a 1-node or 3-node Nutanix CE 2.0 cluster deployed in nested virtualization depending on your lab compute capacity, as documented here and here
a NKE-enabled K8s cluster deployed in Nutanix CE (see Ep1)
a Guestbook demo app deployed onto the NKE cluster (see Ep2)
a lab network environment supports VLAN tagging and provides basic infra services such as AD, DNS, NTP etc (these are required when installing the CE cluster)
a Linux/Mac workstation for managing the Kubernetes cluster, with Kubectl installed

PART-1: Exploring Calico CNI models in NKE

Calico is recognized as the most popular CNI plugins within he Kubernetes community, and it has been widely deployed in production thanks to its reliable performance and comprehensive networking and security features.

Calico on Route179

NKE lab series – Ep3: Deep dive into NKE networking with Calico CNI

pre-requisites

PART-1: Exploring Calico CNI models in NKE