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2024

Using Keptn Analyses in Argo Workflows

In this blog post we will explore how Keptn can be used within Argo Workflows to execute load tests using a KeptnTask, and analyze their results afterward using the Keptn Analysis feature. Argo Workflows is a workflow orchestration engine built for Kubernetes, which makes it a perfect fit to be used together with Keptn. We will achieve this by using the support for Executor Plugins provided by Argo Workflows. This plugin mechanism is an easy way of integrating custom functionality into an Argo Workflow, and providing further nodes in the workflow with valuable information, such as the outcome of a Keptn Analysis.

Application health checks with Keptn using ArgoCD

In this blog post we will present a planned Keptn and ArgoCD integration to execute advanced application health checks using Keptn.

Keptn provides an effective way to perform application health checks using the pre- or post-deployment tasks and evaluations. ArgoCD application health checks evaluate whether the application is successfully deployed and the workloads are running on the cluster but they do not show if the services of a single application are actually working as expected. For example, it could be the case that the individual services deployed by ArgoCD are up and running, but due to a slow response time (let's say 3s), the users would have a bad experience. Keptn pre- and post-deployment tasks and evaluations complement the missing functionality by providing a straight-forward way to examine the application's ability to perform the actions for which it was developed. In this particular case, Keptn can perform KeptnEvaluations to examine whether the response time of the application services are in the expected boundaries.

Multi Stage Delivery using GitOps

In multi-stage environments it can be a challenge to see how a particular version of a workload progresses through different stages. This can make it difficult to precisely trace exactly which modification introduced a problem when something goes wrong in one of the deployment stages.

Keptn helps to address this challenge by providing a distributed OpenTelemetry trace that encompasses all deployment stages and contains all relevant information, such as the Git commit ID that triggered the deployment of a workload. For example, if the evaluation of a load test in one of the deployment stages is failing, the distributed trace generated by Keptn contains details about the result of the evaluation, as well as a link to the deployment trace of the previous stage. This makes it easy to trace back the deployment of that particular workload across the previous stages, right until the original commit that resulted in the performance degradation.

This blog post demonstrates an example workflow that automates the promotion of a sample application across two different stages. The deployment traces of those stages are linked together and enriched with valuable metadata, such as the commit ID that triggered the deployment of a new workload version.

Announcing the Release Candidate for Keptn v2

The Keptn project is proud to announce a release candidate for what will become Keptn v2. User feedback to the Keptn project has been clear, and we’ve listened. We thank the users who have given us feedback and all the community members who have contributed to this project.

We are sharing this release candidate so that the community and end users can participate in the testing to ensure that the actual release is as robust as possible. We anticipate (as long as no release blockers are identified) that Keptn v2 will be released approximately 1 month after this announcement.

Keptn is now officially available via the Glasskube Package Manager for Kubernetes

We are happy to announce that Keptn is now officially available via the Glasskube Package Manager to bring Keptn to even more users.

Installing packages for Kubernetes clusters is one of the most pressing issues in the Cloud Native community. There are still some unaddressed challenges like managing dependencies and streamlining updates across multiple packages.

In this article we give an overview about Glasskube, Keptn and how the installation works.

Configure Keptn via the new Helm umbrella chart

In the dynamic world of cloud-native and microservices, installation and continuous upgrades of distributed systems is a priority. Embarking on a journey into the world of containerized applications often leads us into a labyrinth of configuration and deployment intricacies. Amidst this complexity, Helm charts emerge as the guiding light, streamlining the orchestration of Kubernetes-based applications.

In this article, we're delving into the topic of Helm charts, in particular Umbrella charts - an approach that simplifies the deployment and maintenance of microservice application architectures. Let's uncover how these consolidated charts pave the way for smoother deployments, enhance scalability, and bring harmony to the orchestration of complex Kubernetes environments.

  • 6 min read

2023 Keptn Year in Review

Hello and Happy New Year from the entire Keptn Team. We hope you had a wonderful holiday season and that you’re all having a wonderful 2024 so far! We’d like to take a moment to reflect back on what a great year 2023 was for Keptn and what we're looking forward to in 2024!

The biggest news for the project in 2023 was probably the maturing of the cloud native Keptn, with the former subproject named Keptn Lifecycle Toolkit officially becoming Keptn in August 2023, and the end-of-life (EOL) for Keptn v1. We focused on having Keptn be a 100% cloud native, opinionated way of delivering Kubernetes apps and it was important for us to implement the “big pillars” of Keptn v1: supporting the metrics component of the Keptn v1 quality gates feature, observability (new), and deployments by defining KeptnTasks & Evaluations to execute any container the user provides and extending deployments (job executor service in Keptn v1).