The SMF is built on the Kubernetes cluster strategy, which implies that it has adopted the native concepts of containerization, high availability, scalability, modularity, and ease of deployment. To achieve the benefits offered by Kubernetes, SMF uses the construct that includes the components such as pods and services.

Depending on your deployment environment, the SMF deploys the pods on the virtual machines that you have configured. Pods operate through the services that are responsible for the intrapod communications. If the machine hosting the pods fail or experiences network disruption, the pods are terminated or deleted. However, this situation is transient and SMF spins new pods to replace the invalid pods.

The following workflow provides a high-level visibility into the host machines, and the associated pods and services. It also represents how the pods interact with each other. The representation might defer based on your deployment infrastructure.

Kubernetes deployment includes the kubectl command-line tool to manage the Kubernetes resources in the cluster. You can manage the pods, nodes, and services.

For generic information on the Kubernetes concepts, see the Kubernetes documentation.

For more information on the Kubernetes components in SMF, see the following.

• Pods

• Services

This section describes how to associate a pod to the node based on their labels.

After you have configured a cluster, you can associate pods to the nodes through labels. This association enables the pods to get deployed on the appropriate node based on the key-value pair.

Labels are required for the pods to identify the nodes where they must get deployed and to run the services. For example, when you configure the protocol-layer label with the required key-value pair, the pods are deployed on the nodes that match the key-value pair.

1. To associate pods to the nodes through the labels, use the following configuration:

   configure 
     label 
       cdl-layer   
         key key_value 
         value value 
       oam-layer   
         key key_value 
         value value 
       protocol-layer   
         key key_value 
         value value 
       service-layer   
         key key_value 
         value value 
         end 

NOTES:

• If you opt not to configure the labels, then SMF assumes the labels with the default key-value pair.

  • label { cdl-layer { key key_value | value value } : Configures the key value pair for CDL.

  • oam-layer { key key_value | value value } : Configures the key value pair for OAM layer.

  • protocol-layer { key key_value | value value } : Configures the key value pair for protocol layer.

  • service-layer { key key_value | value value } : Configures the key value pair for the service layer.

If the service requires additional pods, SMF creates and deploys the pods. You can view the list of pods that are participating in your deployment through the SMF Ops Center.

You can run the kubectl command from the master node to manage the Kubernetes resources.

1. To view the comprehensive pod details, use the following command.

   kubectl get pods -n smf pod_name -o yaml 

The pod details are available in YAML format. The output of this command results in the following information:

• The IP address of the host where the pod is deployed.

• The service and application that is running on the pod.

• The ID and name of the container within the pod.

• The IP address of the pod.

• The current state and phase in which the pod is.

• The start time from which pod is in the current state.

Use the following command to view the summary of the pod details.

kp get pods -n smf_namespace -o wide