We’re proud to announce the general availability of Couchbase Autonomous Operator 2.0. We have achieved significant milestones since we first announced production certification of Couchbase Server on Docker containers in June of 2016, and with Autonomous Operator 2.0, we are now indeed a cloud-native database platform.

A Cloud-Native, Fully Autonomous Database Management Platform

In this release, we have introduced several new enterprise-grade features with fully autonomous capabilities such as automated security management, resource management, centralized monitoring through Prometheus, auto-configuration of cross datacenter replication (XDCR), and automatic backup and restore operations. Many of our customers have been successfully running Couchbase Autonomous Operator in a production environment for the past couple of years. Most of them have engaged with us over the last 20 months to provide feedback and help define the capabilities of Couchbase Autonomous Operator 2.0. Thank you so much!

Kubernetes at the Core With Advanced Capabilities

Couchbase Autonomous Operator 2.0 builds upon the features in the Kubernetes platform 1.13+ at its core. In this release, we have re-architected how we install, upgrade, and manage Couchbase, including role-based access control (RBAC) security, XDCR management, monitoring through Prometheus, and scheduled backups. These advancements are based on the latest innovations in Couchbase Server and the improvement of the Kubernetes ecosystem with better support for custom resources.

Couchbase Autonomous Operator 2.0 Reference Architecture

What’s New in Couchbase Autonomous Operator 2.0?

New Couchbase Custom Resource Model

This release introduces a new security model for deploying and managing Couchbase custom resources. Previously, you would deploy a cluster using a single, monolithic CouchbaseCluster resource configuration that defined everything about a cluster (e.g., nodes, buckets, XDCR, etc.). Starting with Autonomous Operator 2.0, parts of the CouchbaseCluster resource are separated into their custom resource types, which the Autonomous Operator aggregates together using label selection.

Moving to this new model is crucial for the Autonomous Operator to be able to support future evolutions of the Kubernetes platform. You’ll find that these advancements also provide immediate advantages in terms of manageability. One of the most practical benefits is that you can achieve fine-grained access control over different parts of a Couchbase deployment through the enactment of custom resource RBAC.

Autonomous Operator 2.0 requires that all Couchbase custom resources use the new format. Couchbase custom resources – such as CouchbaseCluster – are not backward compatible between Autonomous Operator versions 1 and 2. If you’re upgrading from Autonomous Operator 1.x, a tool (cbopconv) has been provided to convert your existing CouchbaseCluster resources to version 2.0.

Automated Security Management

The Autonomous Operator can now directly manage the creation and authorization of Couchbase users (both local and LDAP). When combined with label selection, the new CouchbaseUser, CouchbaseGroup, and CouchbaseRoleBinding resources allow a great deal of flexibility in how the Autonomous Operator can manage users in multi-cluster deployments.

Note – Support for LDAP and RBAC is available starting with Couchbase Server 6.5.

Read more about managing Couchbase User RBAC.

Auto-Configuration of Cross Datacenter Replication

The Autonomous Operator can now directly manage cross datacenter replication (XDCR) using the new CouchbaseReplication resource.

Read more about how to Configure XDCR.

Centralized Monitoring Through Prometheus

Proactive monitoring and alerting is essential to managing a healthy Couchbase environment. While the Couchbase Web Console provides detailed statistics and alerting functionality, it is intended to be a real-time dashboard and does not tie into many of the other components a system operator may need to monitor. Integration with external monitoring systems such as Prometheus is required for two primary purposes: proactive alerting and real-time metrics gathering across multiple Couchbase clusters.

Autonomous Operator 2.0 provides native integration with the Couchbase Prometheus Exporter for collecting and exposing Couchbase Server metrics. These exported metrics can be scraped by Prometheus and then visualized in tools like Grafana.

Read more about how to Configure Prometheus Metrics Collection.

Automatic Backup and Restore Operations

Backup is one of the most mundane and repetitive activities for a database administrator. However, it is an essential task that cannot be ignored.

With Autonomous Operator 2.0, users of Couchbase will have a completely seamless automated/scheduled backup experience with all the enterprise-grade functionality provided by Couchbase Server cbbackupmgr. This also includes the ability to restore a backup to the Couchbase cluster using the CouchbaseBackupRestore resources definition.

Read more about how to Configure Backup and Restore.

Certificate Authentication Using Mutual TLS Support

Mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication between Couchbase Server and Couchbase SDK clients is now fully supported by the Autonomous Operator. With this mode of operation, not only do clients verify that they are talking to a trusted entity, but the Couchbase Server instance can also establish trust in the client.

Read more about TLS Client Authentication.

Global Auto-Compaction Management

Global auto-compaction settings can now be managed directly from the CouchbaseCluster resource.

Tutorials on Couchbase Mobile Integration With Kubernetes

We have improved our tutorials and best practices on deploying Couchbase Sync Gateway in Kubernetes alongside Autonomous Operator-managed Couchbase custom resources.

Support for Kubernetes Open Service Broker [Developer Preview]

The Open Service Broker API project https://www.openservicebrokerapi.org/ allows Couchbase to easily provide backing services for workloads running on cloud-native platforms such as Kubernetes.

The API specification, which has been adopted by many platforms and thousands of service providers, describes a simple set of API endpoints that can be used to provision, gain access to, and manage service offerings.

Read more about Couchbase Kubernetes Generic Service Broker.

Couchbase Autonomous Operator 2.0 Resources

 

Author

Posted by Anil Kumar, Director Product Management, Couchbase Cloud-Native Database

Anil Kumar is the Director of Product Management at Couchbase. Anil’s career spans more than 19+ years of building software products across various domains, including enterprise software and cloud services. He is a hands-on product leader responsible for Couchbase Server, Couchbase Cloud, and Kubernetes product lines, including evangelizing the product strategy and vision with customers, partners, developers, and analysts. Before joining Couchbase, Anil spent several years working at Microsoft Redmond. Anil holds a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Toronto (Canada) and a bachelor’s in information technology from Visvesvaraya Technological University (India).

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