Use

At this point, the developer is ready to request a workspace within the host Kubernetes cluster. To get access to the environment, note that the developer

Does not need to have any knowledge of Terraform or other IaC frameworks
Does not need access to privileged credentials
Does not need any help from the Platform team to deploy their environment

Important

Ensure that the developer is assigned to a group that has the "Environment Template User role" in the project. This will provide the developer the ability to create the new workspace environment via self-service.

Request Workspace¶

When a developer requests a workspace, based on Kubernetes, a series of steps are automatically performed to fulfil the request. The sequence diagram below describes the high level steps.

Important

Although the recommended workflow assumes and recommends using an Integration with an Identity Provider (IdP) to provide a Single Sign On (SSO) experience, organizations can also use locally managed users.

sequenceDiagram    
    participant dev as Developer
    participant rafay as Rafay Platform
    participant csp as K8s Cluster
    participant idp as Identity Provider 

    dev->>rafay: Login (Opt. SSO)
    dev->>rafay: New Environment 
    rect rgba(0, 0, 255, .1)
    rafay-->>csp: Create workspace w/ Resource Quota  
    opt SSO via Identity Provider
        rafay-->>idp: Create Group for workspace 
        rafay-->>idp: Add developer to Group 
    end
    rafay->>rafay: Create Group in Rafay
    rafay->>rafay: Add Workspace Admin <br>RBAC to Group
    end
    dev-->>app: Developer uses workspace

Note

Once the developer logs into the Rafay Org after the the environment is created (SSO using Identity Provider recommended), they will automatically have access to their specific Workspaces they have been authorized to use. The necessary RBAC to the assigned workspace is orchestrated automatically by Rafay Kubernetes Manager.

Step 1: Deploy Environment¶

The developer can now deploy the environment. Environment Manager will automatically create a workspace on the shared host cluster, configure the workspace with the specified policies and assign the proper RBAC to allow the developer with the privileges to manage resources in the newly created workspace resources.

Developer logs in and navigates to the project
Navigate to Environments -> Environments
Click Launch on the Workspace as a Service card

Deploy

Enter a name for the environment
Select the appropriate CPU and Memory requests for the workspace

Optionally, you can add a collaborator to the environment resources. This user will have the same permissions as the requesting user of the environment.

To add a collaborator:

Click Show optional parameters
Click Add Optional Parameter
Select collaborator for the parameter
Enter the collaborator's email address for the value
Click Save & Deploy

Deploy

The environment will begin to deploy. This step can take ~2 minutes to complete.

Once complete, you will see the name of the newly created workspace/project in the Results section of the page

Deploy

Step 2: Use Workspace¶

Once the environment has finished deploying, the developer can use the newly deployed workspace. They can deploy and operate containerized applications to the newly created workspace. The typical steps are as follows

Build a container image
Upload the container image to a container registry (e.g. ECR or DockerHub)
Create Kubernetes YAML for the container image
Deploy the application to the workspace using either Kubectl or Helm or Rafay workloads.

Access Workspace¶

Developers can optionally use the steps below to access the workspace that is created for them.

Log into the controller
Navigate to Infrastructure -> Clusters
Click KUBECTL on the cluster card to access the workspace

Summary¶

In summary, with Rafay, developers can now develop, deploy and validate their applications on a shared cluster within a dedicated workspace that was provisioned for them in a "self-service" manner.