Redefine the Application using Helm

Installing the Smart Scaler Agent installs the Inference Agent and the Event Agent, and generates ConfigMap. This topic describes how to remove the default ConfigMap and define the applications if you want more flexibility.

info

The Smart Scaler Agent installation includes the default ConfigMap that contains the agent and application definition. The default application definition streamlines application onboarding. To use it, follow these steps:

1. Review the default ConfigMap included with the Smart Scaler Agent installation. This ConfigMap contains both the agent configuration and the default application definition.
2. Use the default application definition to simplify onboarding, unless you require advanced customization.
3. Identify the Kubernetes namespaces where your applications are deployed.
4. Open the ss-agent-values.yaml file downloaded from the management console's Agents page.
5. Locate the smartScalerAgentMonitorNs property in the file.
6. Add a comma-separated list of namespaces you want Smart Scaler to monitor under this property. You can use .* to monitor all namespaces in your cluster.

After the namespaces are defined, the Inference Agent assumes that all deployments in each specified namespace should be managed as a unit by Smart Scaler.

If this setup matches your deployment pattern, this is all you need to do to onboard your applications.

If this pattern does not match your cluster and you want to specifically identify the deployments that you would want Smart Scaler to manage, then you can define your applications as follows.

Overview

The Inference agent collects data from the data sources. These metrics are sent to the SaaS for recommendation and the recommendation is returned to the cluster. The recommendation is placed where HPA can observe the change and react by raising/lowering pod counts within HPA's minimum/maximum pod limits. The Event Agent adjusts the minimum pod limit based on calendar scheduling.

Delete the Default ConfigMap

Installing a Smart Scaler Agent defines the ConfigMap. To gain more flexibility, you can remove the default ConfigMap and create a new ConfigMap.

Use this command to remove the default ConfigMap that comes with the Smart Scaler Agent installation:

kubectl delete configmap <configmap-name> -n <namespace>

Example

kubectl delete configmap smart-scaler-config -n smart-scaler

Configure the Helm Properties

To configure the helm properties:

1. Create an ss-appconfig-values.yaml file.

   The following is the example ss-appconfig-values.yaml file.

   info

   The In-Cluster approach is the default for event scaling. To use the GitOps approach for event scaling, contact support@avesha.com.

   warning

   For event scaling with Smart Scaler agent versions 2.9.28 or earlier, each application deployment in a namespace must have its own configured HPA. Without an individual HPA, event scaling fails.

   However, starting with Smart Scaler agent versions 2.9.29 and later, event scaling no longer requires an individual HPA for each application deployment.

   agentConfiguration:
     # This will be pre populated by SmartScaler
     clientID: <tenant-id> # This is preconfigured in your ss-appconfig-values.yaml file.
   namedDataSources:
     - name: "<appdynamics / datadog / prometheus>" # This is the same name that you used in the agent configuration
       datasourceType: "<datadog/prometheus>" # This is the type of the datasource
   configGenerator:
     apps:
       - app: "<application name>" # name of the application. e.g. awesome-app
         app_version: "<application version>" # version of the application. e.g. 1.0
         namedDatasource: "<data source>" # reference to the namedDataSources. e.g. prometheus, datadog, or appdynamics 
         default_fallback: 3 # Default fallback value
         use_collector_queries: false # Use only datasource collector queries
         clusters:
           - name: "<cluster>" # name of the cluster where the application is deployed. This should be same as your datadog metrics label. e.g. my-awesome-cluster
             namespaces:
               - name: "<namespace>" # name of the namespace. e.g. acmefitness
                 metricsType: "istio" # type of the metrics. e.g. istio
                 deployments: # list of k8s deployments
                   - name: <deployment name>
                     fallback: # Default fallback value
                     eventConfig: # Configuration for event scaling
                       ScaledObject: # Configuration for the scaled object 
                         kind: # Default it the HorizontalPodAutoScaler. Possible values are HorizontalPodAutoScaler, ScaledOject.
                         name: # Name of the HPA, Default is the name of the deployment.
                         namespace: Namespace of the HPA. Default is the namespace of the deployment.

2. Update the ss-appconfig-values.yaml as per your environment.

3. Deploy the configuration by running the following command:

   helm install smartscaler-configs smart-scaler/smartscaler-configurations -f ss-appconfig-values.yaml -n smart-scaler

   The helm template will generate the necessary Queries and ApplicationConfig configurations based on your input and create the desired ConfigMap for the Inference Agent and ApplicationConfig CR for the event autoscaler.

Verify the Configuration

1. Use the following command to verify the configuration:

   kubectl get applicationconfigs.agent.smart-scaler.io -n smart-scaler

   Expected Output

   NAME                AGE
   awesome-app         10s

2. Use the following command to verify the ConfigMap:

   kubectl get configmap -n smart-scaler

   Expected Output

   NAME                                 DATA   AGE
   agent-controller-autoscaler-config   2      1m
   agent-controller-manager-config      1      1m
   config-helper-ui-nginx               1      1m
   kube-root-ca.crt                     1      1m
   smart-scaler-config                  1      1m

   You have successfully configured the Smart Scaler agents. You can now start using the Smart Scaler to autoscale your applications.

info

Ensure that CPU and memory requests meet the following minimum requirements to receive Smart Scaling recommendations for your application:

• CPU Requests: 200 millicores
• Memory Requests: 128 MB