Create a Kubernetes cluster

Calisti requires a running Kubernetes cluster. If you don’t already have a Kubernetes cluster to work with, create one that meets the following resource requirements:

Supported providers and Kubernetes versions:

The cluster must run a Kubernetes version that Istio supports. For Istio 1.15.x, these are Kubernetes 1.21, 1.22, 1.23, and 1.24.

Calisti is tested and known to work on the following Kubernetes providers:

• Cisco Intersight Kubernetes Service (IKS)
• Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS)
• Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• On-premises installation of stock Kubernetes with load balancer support (and optionally PVCs for persistence)

Resource requirements:

Make sure that your Kubernetes cluster has sufficient resources. The default installation (with Calisti and demo application) requires the following amount of resources on the cluster:

• CPU:
  • 12 vCPU in total (for SMM only)
  • 24 vCPU in total (for SMM and SDM)
  • 4 vCPU available for allocation per worker node
• Memory:
  • 16 GB in total (for SMM only)
  • 36 GB in total (for SMM and SDM)
  • 2 GB available for allocation per worker node
• 12 GB of ephemeral storage on the Kubernetes worker nodes (for Traces and Metrics)

Note: available for allocation per worker node means the amount available after subtracting the usage of DaemonSets and Kubernetes node-agents.

Enabling additional features, such as High Availability increases this value.

The default installation, when enough headroom is available in the cluster, should be able to support at least 150 running Pods with the same amount of Services. For setting up Calisti for bigger workloads, see Scaling and Performance Tuning.

Set Kubernetes configuration and contexts

The Calisti command-line tool uses your current Kubernetes context, from the file named in the KUBECONFIG environment variable (~/.kube/config by default). Check if this is the cluster you plan to deploy the product to by running the following command:

kubectl config get-contexts

If there are multiple contexts in the Kubeconfig file, specify the one you want to use with the use-context parameter, for example:

kubectl config use-context <context-to-use>

Download the Calisti binaries

If you haven’t already, download the Calisti command-line tool and set your activation credentials here.