OpenEBS for Redis

OpenEBS and Redis

Introduction

Redis is an open source (BSD licensed), in-memory data structure store, used as a database, cache and message broker. Redis is deployed usually as a statefulset on Kubernetes and requires persistent storage for each instance of Redis StorageManager instance. OpenEBS provides persistent volumes on the fly when StorageManagers are scaled up.

Advantages of using OpenEBS for Redis:

  • No need to manage the local disks, they are managed by OpenEBS
  • Large size PVs can be provisioned by OpenEBS and Redis
  • Start with small storage and add disks as needed on the fly. Sometimes Redis instances are scaled up because of capacity on the nodes. With OpenEBS persistent volumes, capacity can be thin provisioned and disks can be added to OpenEBS on the fly without disruption of service
  • Redis sometimes need highly available storage, in such cases OpenEBS volumes can be configured with 3 replicas.
  • If required, take backup of the Redis data periodically and back them up to S3 or any object storage so that restoration of the same data is possible to the same or any other Kubernetes cluster

Note: Redis can be deployed both as deployment or as statefulset. When Redis deployed as statefulset, you don’t need to replicate the data again at OpenEBS level. When Redis is deployed as deployment, consider 3 OpenEBS replicas, choose the StorageClass accordingly.

Deployment model

OpenEBS and Redis

Configuration workflow

  1. Install OpenEBS

    If OpenEBS is not installed in your K8s cluster, this can done from here. If OpenEBS is already installed, go to the next step.

  2. Connect to Kubera (Optional) : Connecting the Kubernetes cluster to Kubera provides good visibility of storage resources. Kubera has various support options for enterprise customers.

  3. Configure cStor Pool

    After OpenEBS installation, cStor pool has to be configured. If cStor Pool is not configured in your OpenEBS cluster, this can be done from here. Sample YAML named openebs-config.yaml for configuring cStor Pool is provided in the Configuration details below. During cStor Pool creation, make sure that the maxPools parameter is set to >=3. If cStor pool is already configured, go to the next step.

  4. Create Storage Class

    You must configure a StorageClass to provision cStor volume on given cStor pool. StorageClass is the interface through which most of the OpenEBS storage policies are defined. In this solution we are using a StorageClass to consume the cStor Pool which is created using external disks attached on the Nodes. Since Redis is a StatefulSet, it requires storage replication factor as 1. So cStor volume replicaCount is >=1. Sample YAML named openebs-sc-disk.yamlto consume cStor pool with cStoveVolume Replica count as 1 is provided in the configuration details below.

  5. Launch and test Redis

    Use stable Redis image with helm to deploy Redis in your cluster using the following command. In the following command, it will create a PVC with 8G size for data volume.

    1. helm install --set master.persistence.storageClass=openebs-cstor-disk stable/redis

    For more information on installation, see Redis documentation.

Reference at openebs.ci

A live deployment of Redis using OpenEBS volumes as highly available data storage can be seen at the website www.openebs.ci

Deployment YAML spec files for Redis and OpenEBS resources are found here

OpenEBS-CI dashboard of Redis

Post deployment Operations

Monitor OpenEBS Volume size

It is not seamless to increase the cStor volume size (refer to the roadmap item). Hence, it is recommended that sufficient size is allocated during the initial configuration. However, an alert can be setup for volume size threshold using Kubera.

Monitor cStor Pool size

As in most cases, cStor pool may not be dedicated to just Redis database alone. It is recommended to watch the pool capacity and add more disks to the pool before it hits 80% threshold. See cStorPool metrics.

Configuration details

openebs-config.yaml

  1. #Use the following YAMLs to create a cStor Storage Pool.
  2. # and associated storage class.
  3. apiVersion: openebs.io/v1alpha1
  4. kind: StoragePoolClaim
  5. metadata:
  6.   name: cstor-disk
  7. spec:
  8.   name: cstor-disk
  9.   type: disk
  10.   poolSpec:
  11.     poolType: striped
  12.   # NOTE - Appropriate disks need to be fetched using `kubectl get disks`
  13.   #
  14.   # `Disk` is a custom resource supported by OpenEBS with `node-disk-manager`
  15.   # as the disk operator
  16. # Replace the following with actual disk CRs from your cluster `kubectl get disks`
  17. # Uncomment the below lines after updating the actual disk names.
  18.   disks:
  19.     diskList:
  20. # Replace the following with actual disk CRs from your cluster from `kubectl get disks`
  21. #   - disk-184d99015253054c48c4aa3f17d137b1
  22. #   - disk-2f6bced7ba9b2be230ca5138fd0b07f1
  23. #   - disk-806d3e77dd2e38f188fdaf9c46020bdc
  24. #   - disk-8b6fb58d0c4e0ff3ed74a5183556424d
  25. #   - disk-bad1863742ce905e67978d082a721d61
  26. #   - disk-d172a48ad8b0fb536b9984609b7ee653
  27. ---

openebs-sc-disk.yaml

  1. apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
  2. kind: StorageClass
  3. metadata:
  4.   name: openebs-cstor-disk
  5.   annotations:
  6.     openebs.io/cas-type: cstor
  7.     cas.openebs.io/config: |
  8.       - name: StoragePoolClaim
  9.         value: "cstor-disk"
  10.       - name: ReplicaCount
  11.         value: "1"       
  12. provisioner: openebs.io/provisioner-iscsi
  13. reclaimPolicy: Delete
  14. ---

See Also:

OpenEBS architecture

OpenEBS use cases

cStor pools overview