The EWC Managed Kubernetes Service is a core part of the European Weather Cloud (EWC), providing a centralized platform for managing Kubernetes clusters. EUMETSAT handles the control plane centrally for all tenants. Meanwhile, tenants have the flexibility to provision their own worker nodes within their tenancy,to ensure isolation and accurate cost allocation.
To help you understand how the service works, this section introduces the fundamental concepts and components that are part of the system.
Control Plane
A centrally managed component responsible for cluster orchestration. This includes managing Kubernetes API endpoints, scheduling workloads, and maintaining overall cluster health.
- Shared across tenants.
- Hosted and managed by EUMETSAT.
Worker Nodes
The infrastructure where your containerized applications actually run.
- Deployed within each tenant’s environment.
- Dedicated to individual tenants for resource isolation and accountability.
Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform (KKP)
A user-friendly web interface that simplifies the creation and management of Kubernetes clusters. It enables users to deploy and manage Kubernetes clusters.
Project (in KKP)
Isolated space where clusters of each tenant are grouped and presets to access the available OpenStack clouds are stored. A single project is mapped to a single tenant.
Rancher (K8S Dashboard)
A user-friendly web interface designed to simplify workload administration.
Kubernetes API
An interface that allows advanced users to manage clusters and resources programmatically.
Integration with other EUMETSAT EWC Services
- EUMETSAT EWC IAM: Handles authentication and access management.
- EUMETSAT Container Registry: Stores and distributes container images.
Supported Kubernetes Versions
The EWC Managed Kubernetes Service supports 3 latest minor Kubernetes versions (releases) available at the time of the release of the platform. The platform is updated periodically with the aim of enabling the use of recent versions of Kubernetes, this also means that old versions of Kubernetes cannot be supported.
Please note, the users are responsible for periodically updating their clusters ensuring the cluster versions stay within the window of the 3 supported minor versions. The EWC administrators reserve the right to upgrade unsupported clusters automatically to a supported version.