On-Premise PaaS deployment

Before you begin

To get you up and running with the Apica Ascent PaaS, we've made Apica Ascent PaaS' Kubernetes components available as Helm Charts. To deploy Apica Ascent PaaS, you'll need access to a Kubernetes cluster and Helm 3.

Before you start deploying Apica Ascent PaaS, let's run through a few quick steps to set up your environment correctly.

Add the Apica Ascent Helm repository

Add Apica Ascent's Helm repository to your Helm repositories by running the following command.

helm repo add apica-repo https://logiqai.github.io/helm-charts

The Helm repository you just added is named apica-repo. Whenever you install charts from this repository, ensure that you use the repository name as the prefix in your install command, as shown below.

helm install <deployment_name> apica-repo/<chart_name>

You can now search for the Helm charts available in the repository by running the following command.

helm search repo apica-repo

Running this command displays a list of the available Helm charts along with their details, as shown below.

$ helm repo update
$ helm search repo apica-repo

NAME	CHART VERSION	APP VERSION	DESCRIPTION
apica-repo/apica-ascent			Apica Ascent Data Fabric HELM chart for Kubernetes

If you've already added Apica Ascent's Helm repository in the past, you can update the repository by running the following command.

helm repo update

Create a namespace to deploy Apica Ascent

Create a namespace where we'll deploy Apica Ascent PaaS by running the following command.

kubectl create namespace apica-ascent

Running the command shown above creates a namespace named apica-ascent. You can also name your namespace differently by replacing apica-ascent with the name of your choice in the command above. In case you do, remember to use the same namespace for the rest of the instructions listed in this guide.

Important: Ensure that the name of the namespace is not more than 15 characters in length.

Prepare your Values file

Just as any other package deployed via Helm charts, you can configure your LOGIG PaaS deployment using a Values file. The Values file acts as the Helm chart's API, giving it access to values to populate the Helm chart's templates.

To give you a head start with configuring your Apica Ascent deployment, we've provided sample values.yaml files for small, medium, and large clusters. You can use these files as a base for configuring your Apica Ascent deployment. You can download these files from the following links.

values.small.yaml

6KB

values.small.yaml

values.medium.yaml

6KB

values.medium.yaml

values.large.yaml

7KB

values.large.yaml

You can pass the values.yaml file with the helm install command using the -f flag, as shown in the following example.

helm install apica-ascent --namespace apica-ascent --set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage_class_name> apica-repo/apica-ascent -f values.small.yaml

Install Apica Ascent PaaS

Now that your environment is ready, you can proceed with installing Apica Ascent PaaS in it. To install Apica Ascent PaaS, run the following command.

helm install apica-ascent --namespace apica-ascent --set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage class name> apica-repo/apica-ascent

Running the above command installs Apica Ascent PaaS and exposes its services and UI on the ingress' IP address. Accessing the ingress' IP address in a web browser of your choice takes you to the Apica Ascent PaaS login screen, as shown in the following image.

If you haven't changed any of the admin settings in the values.yaml file you used during deployment, you can log into the Apica Ascent PaaS UI using the following default credentials.

• Username: [e-mail]

• Password: flash-password

Note: You can change the default login credentials after you've logged into the UI.

Your Apica Ascent PaaS instance is now deployed and ready for use. Your Apica Ascent instance enables you to ingest and tail logs, index and query log data, and search capabilities. Along with the Apica Ascent UI, you can also access these features via Apica Ascent's CLI, apicactl.

Customising your Apica Ascent deployment

You can customise your Apica Ascent PaaS deployment either before or after you deploy it in your environment. The types of supported customisations are listed below.

• Enabling HTTPS for the Apica Ascent UI

• Using an AWS S3 bucket

• Install Apica Ascent server and client CA certificates(optional)

• Updating the storage class

• Using an external AWS RDS Postgres database instance

• Uploading a Apica Ascent professional license

• Customising the admin account

• Using an external Redis instance

• Configuring the cluster_id

• Sizing your Apica Ascent cluster

• NodePort/ClusterIP/LoadBalancer

• Using Node Selectors

• Installing Grafana

Enabling HTTPS for the Apica Ascent UI

You can enable HTTPS and assign a custom domain in the ingress for your Apica Ascent UI while installing Apica Ascent in your environment by running the following command.

helm install apica-ascent --namespace apica-ascent \
--set global.domain=ascent.my-domain.com \
--set ingress.tlsEnabled=true \
--set kubernetes-ingress.controller.defaultTLSSecret.enabled=true \
--set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage class name> apica-repo/apica-ascent

The following table describes all of the Helm options passed in the command above.

Helm option	Description	Default
global.domain	The DNS domain where the Apica Ascent service will be running. This option is required to enable HTTPS.	No default
ingress.tlsEnabled	Enables the ingress controller to front HTTPS for services	false
kubernetes-ingress.controller.defaultTLSSecret.enabled	Specifies if a default certificate is enabled for the ingress gateway	false
kubernetes-ingress.controller.defaultTLSSecret.secret	Specifies the name of a TLS secret for the ingress gateway. If this is not specified, a secret is automatically generated of option kubernetes-ingress.controller.defaultTLSSecret.enabled

After you run the command, you should then update your DNS server to point to the ingress controller service's IP. Once you've done this, you can access your Apica Ascent UI at the domain https://ascent.my-domain.com that you set in the ingress controller service.

Passing an ingress secret

You can pass your own ingress secret while installing the Helm chart by running the following command.

helm install apica-ascent --namespace apica-ascent \
--set global.domain=ascent.my-domain.com \
--set ingress.tlsEnabled=true \
--set kubernetes-ingress.controller.defaultTLSSecret.enabled=true \
--set kubernetes-ingress.controller.defaultTLSSecret.secret=<secret_name> \
--set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage class name> apica-repo/apica-ascent

If you want to pass your own ingress secret, you can do so when installing the HELM chart

Using an AWS S3 bucket

Depending on your requirements, you may want to host your storage in either your own Kubernetes cluster or create a new storage bucket in a cloud provider like AWS.

If you choose to use an S3 bucket, be sure to deploy your Apica Ascent PaaS cluster in the same region that hosts your S3 bucket. Failing to do so can lead to you incurring additional data transfer costs for transferring data between regions.

To use your own S3 bucket, do the following.

Create an access/secret key pair for creating and managing your bucket

Go to your AWS IAM console and create an access key and secret key using which you can create your S3 bucket. Also provide access to the bucket for writing and reading your log files.

Deploy Apica Ascent in gateway mode

The S3 gateway acts as a caching gateway and helps reduce API costs. Deploy the Apica Ascent Helm chart in gateway mode by running the following command. Ensure you pass your AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY and name your S3 bucket uniquely.

helm install apica-ascent --namespace apica-ascent --set global.domain=ascent.my-domain.com \
--set global.environment.s3_bucket=<bucket_name> \
--set global.environment.awsServiceEndpoint=https://s3.<region>.amazonaws.com \
--set global.environment.s3_region=<region> \
--set global.environment.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<access_key> \
--set global.environment.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<secret_key> \
--set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage class name> apica-repo/apica-ascent

The command above automatically provisions an S3 bucket for you in the region you specify using the access credentials you pass with the command. If you do not wish to create a new bucket, make sure the access credentials you pass work with the S3 bucket you specify in the command. Additionally, make sure you provide a valid Amazon service endpoint for your S3 bucket or else the configuration defaults to using the https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com endpoint.

The following table describes all the Helm options passed in the command above.

elm option	Description	Default
global.cloudProvider	This helm option specifies the supported cloudProvider that is hosting the S3 compatible bucket. Currently, only aws is supported.	aws
global.environment.s3_bucket	The name of the S3 bucket in AWS	logiq
global.environment.awsServiceEndpoint	The S3 Service endpoint: https://s3.**<region>**.amazonaws.com	https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
global.environment.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID	The AWS Access key for accessing the bucket	No default
global.environment.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	The AWS Secret key for accessing the bucket	No default
global.environment.s3_region	The AWS Region where the bucket is hosted	us-east-1

Install Apica Ascent server and client CA certificates (optional)

Apica Ascent supports TLS for all of your log ingest sources. Apica Ascent also enables non-TLS ports by default. However, we recommend that you don't use non-TLS ports unless you're running Apica Ascent in a secure VPC or cluster.

You can provide server and client CA certificates to the cluster using a Kubernetes secrets file. Before using the following secrets file template, replace the template sections below with your Base64 encoded secret files.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: logiq-certs
type: Opaque
data:
  ca.crt: {{ .Files.Get "certs/ca.crt.b64" }}
  syslog.crt: {{ .Files.Get "certs/syslog.crt.b64" }}
  syslog.key: {{ .Files.Get "certs/syslog.key.b64" }}

Once you've filled out this template, be sure to save the secrets file and name it appropriately, such as logiq-certs.yaml. You can now install the Apica Ascent Helm chart, along with the certificates using the following command.

helm install apica-ascent --namespace apica-ascent --set global.domain=ascent.my-domain.com \
--set logiq-flash.secrets_name=logiq-certs \
--set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage class name> apica-repo/apica-ascent

Note: If you skip this step, the Apica Ascent server automatically generates a CA and a pair of client and server certificates for you to use. You can retrieve them from the ingest server pods under the folder/flash/certs.

The following table describes the Helm options passed in the install command.

HELM Option	Description	Default
logiq-flash.secrets_name	TLS certificate key pair and CA cert for TLS transport	No default

Updating the storage class

If you plan on using a specific storage class for your volumes, you can configure your Apica Ascent deployment to use that storage class. Apica Ascent uses the standard storage class by default.

The following table details the Kubernetes StorageClass names and their default provisioner for each cloud provider.

Cloud Provider	K8S StorageClassName	Default Provisioner
AWS	gp3	EBS
Azure	UltraSSD_LRS	Azure Ultra disk
GCP	standard	pd-standard
Digital Ocean	do-block-storage	Block Storage Volume
Oracle	oci-bv	Block Volume
Microk8s	microk8s-hostpath

Note: It's possible that your environment uses a different StorageClass name for the provisioner. In such cases, ensure that you use the appropriate name for the storage class. For example, if you create a storage class named ebs-volume for the EBS provisioner for your cluster, you can use ebs-volume instead of gp2,as suggested by the table above.

You can update the storage class name for your Apica Ascent deployment by running the following command.

helm upgrade --namespace apica-ascent \
--set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage class name> \
apica-ascent apica-repo/apica-ascent

Using an external AWS RDS Postgres database instance

To use an external AWS RDS Postgres database for your Apica Ascent deployment, run the following command.

helm install apica-ascent --namespace apica-ascent \
--set global.chart.postgres=false \
--set global.environment.postgres_host=<postgres-host-ip/dns> \
--set global.environment.postgres_user=<username> \
--set global.environment.postgres_password=<password> \
--set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage class name> apica-repo/apica-ascent

The following table describes the Helm options that are passed with the command above.

HELM Option	Description	Default
global.chart.postgres	Deploys Postgres which is needed for Apica Ascent metadata. Set this to false if an external Postgres cluster is being used	true
global.environment.postgres_host	The host IP/DNS for external Postgres	postgres
global.environment.postgres_user	The Postgres admin user	postgres
global.environment.postgres_password	The Postgres admin user password	postgres
global.environment.postgres_port	The host port for external Postgres	5432

Important: While configuring RDS, create a new parameter group that sets autoVacuum to true or the value 1. Associate this parameter group to your RDS instance.

autoVacuum automates the execution of the VACUUM and ANALYZE commands to gather statistics. autoVacuum checks for bloated tables in the database and reclaims the space for reuse.

Uploading a Apica Ascent PaaS Enterprise Edition license

The Apica Ascent PaaS Community Edition gives you access to Enterprise Edition features but with lesser daily log ingest rates and ingest worker processes. If you feel the need to up your daily ingest rates and make the most out of Apica Ascent by extending its use to the rest of your team with SSO and RBAC, you can upgrade to the Apica Ascent PaaS Enterprise Edition.

You can get yourself an Enterprise Edition license by contacting us via [e-mail]. Once you receive your new license, you can apply it to your Apica Ascent deployment using Apica Ascent's CLI, apicactl.

To use apicactl, generate an API token from the Apica Ascent UI, as shown in the following image.

Once you've configured apicactl with your API token and Apica Ascent cluster endpoint, run the following commands to update your license.

# Set cluster end point
> apicactl config set-cluster your-ascent-cluster.com

# Set the API Key
> apicactl config set-token r0q7EyIxNgVjAqLoIeDioJAWEhAR6wK4Y5XpPb3A

# Set the default namespace 
> apicactl config set-context ngnix

Customising the admin account

Apica Ascent enables you to set your own admin credentials to log into your Apica Ascent cluster instead of using the default credentials. You can set your admin credentials while deploying Apica Ascent by running the following command.

helm install apica-ascent --namespace apica-ascent \
--set global.environment.admin_name="Ascent Administrator" \
--set global.environment.admin_password="admin_password" \
--set global.environment.admin_email="[e-mail]" \
--set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage class name> apica-repo/apica-ascent

The following table describes the Helm options passed with the command above.

HELM Option	Description	Default
global.environment.admin_name	The Apica Ascent Administrator's name	[e-mail]
global.environment.admin_password	The Apica Ascent Administrator password	flash-password
global.environment.admin_email	The Apica Ascent Administrator's e-mail	[e-mail]

Using an external Redis instance

You can specify an external Redis instance to be used with your Apica Ascent deployment by specifying the Redis host in the installation command, as shown below.

helm install apica-ascent --namespace apica-ascent \
--set global.chart.redis=false \
--set global.environment.redis_host=<redis-host-ip/dns> \
--set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage class name> apica-repo/apica-ascent

Important: Currently, Apica Ascent only supports connections to a Redis cluster in a local VPC without authentication. If you're using an AWS Elasticache instance, do not turn on encryption-in-transit or cluster mode.

The following table describes the Helm options that can be passed with the command above.

HELM Option	Description	Default
global.chart.redis	Deploys Redis that is needed for log tailing. Set this to false if you're using an external Redis cluster.	true
global.environment.redis_host	The host IP/DNS of the external Redis cluster	redis-master
global.environment.redis_port	The host port where the external Redis service is exposed	6379

Configuring the cluster_id

You can configure a cluster ID for your Apica Ascent instance at the time of deployment by passing the cluster_id of your choice while running the following install command. This helps you identify your Apica Ascent cluster in case you'd like to monitor it.

helm install apica-ascent --namespace apica-ascent \
--set global.environment.cluster_id=<cluster id> \
--set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage class name> apica-repo/apica-ascent

The following table describes the Helm options passed with the command above.

HELM Option	Description	Default
global.environment.cluster_id	The cluster ID being used for the K8s cluster running Apica Ascent. For more information, read Managing multiple K8S clusters.	Apica Ascent

Sizing your Apica Ascent cluster

When deploying Apica Ascent, it's advisable to size your infrastructure appropriately to provide adequate vCPU and memory for the Apica Ascent instance to utilise. The following table describes the minimum recommended sizes for small, medium, and large cluster specifications.

Apica Ascent cluster size	vCPU	Memory	NodeCount
small	12	32 GB	3
medium	20	56 GB	5
large	32	88 GB	8

Configuring NodePort, ClusterIP, and LoadBalancer

The service type configurations for your Apica Ascent deployment are exposed in the values.yaml , as shown in the following example.

flash-coffee:
  service:
    type: ClusterIP
logiq-flash:
  service:
    type: NodePort
kubernetes-ingress:
  controller:
    service:
      type: LoadBalancer

For example, if you are deploying Apica Ascent on a bare-metal server and want an external load balancer to front Apica Ascent, configure all services as NodePort and pass the service types in the installation command, as shown in the following example.

helm install apica-ascent -n apica-ascent -f values.yaml \
--set flash-coffee.service.type=NodePort \
--set logiq-flash.service.type=NodePort \
--set kubernetes-ingress.controller.service.type=NodePort \
apica-repo/apica-ascent

Using Node Selectors

You can optimise the deployment of the Apica Ascent stack using node labels and node selectors that help place various components of the stack optimally.

You can use the node label logiq.ai/node to control the placement of ingest pods for log data into ingest-optimised nodes, thereby allowing you to manage costs and instance sizing effectively.

The various nodeSelectors are defined in the globals section of the values.yaml file. In the following example, different node pools such as ingest , common , db, cache , and sync are used.

globals:
  nodeSelectors:
    enabled: true
    ingest: ingest
    infra: common
    other: common
    db: db
    cache: cache
    ingest_sync: sync

Note: Node selectors are enabled by setting enabled to true for globals.nodeSelectors in your values.yaml file.

Installing Grafana

The Apica Ascent stack bundles Grafana as part of the deployment as an optional component. You can enable Grafana in your Apica Ascent cluster by running the following command.

helm upgrade --install apica-ascent --namespace apica-ascent \
--set global.chart.grafana=true \ 
--set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage class name> apica-repo/apica-ascent

The Grafana instance is exposed at port 3000 on the ingress controller. The deployed Grafana instance uses the same login credentials as the Apica Ascent UI.