Platform Manager

Functionality

Overview

Platform Manager is used to administer the Axual Platform. It is used to perform tasks like:

Apply topic configuration
Allow producer/consumer to access a topic
Synchronize Instance

README & Changelog

More details are in the Platform Manager 9.1.1 Readme and the Platform Manager 9.1.1 Changelog

Example use

As a developer that creates many topics per week, I get tired of clicking through the UI. Instead, I set up a CI/CD pipeline to create topics via API calls.

API

The Platform Manager API is documented here.

Installation

The Platform Manager depends on MySQL and Vault for basic functionality, requires API Gateway, Topic Browse, Apache Kafka

Helm Charts

As part of the Governance Helm charts, the API Gateway can be installed following the guide Axual Streaming & Governance Installation.

Configuration

Vault Namespace

In case you are using Hashicorp Vault Enterprise and you are using namespaces to organize your secrets, you need to update the Platform Manager deployment with a reference for namespace.

Configure Platform Manager with Vault Namespace

Using Axual Helm Charts

Edit the values.yaml file in your working directory with the namespace you want to use.

#Update NAMESPACE for your vault
mgmt:
  api:
    axual:
      vault:
        namespace: [NAMESPACE] # Vault Enterprise Namespace

Security

Authentication Methods

The authentication methods provided by the platform can be configured through the configuration of Platform Manager. SCRAM_SHA_256, SCRAM_SHA_512, and OAUTH_BEARER are available only after their support is enabled on the broker level. By default, only SSL is configured as supported authentication method follow below steps to modify authentication methods:

Enable additional listeners on the brokers.

Edit the values.yaml of the Platform Manager charts and add availableAuthMethods as such:

mgmt:
  api:
    axual:
      availableAuthMethods: 'SSL, SCRAM_SHA_512, SCRAM_SHA_256, OAUTH_BEARER'

Using TLS/SSL between Platform Manager and Remote DB

To use TLS/SSL between Remote DB and Platform Manager follow the steps below:

Change useSSL=true in platform/charts/mgmt/charts/api/values.yaml for Platform Manager

mgmt:
  api:
    spring:
      datasource:
        urlSuffix:
          useSsl: true

Add enabledTLSProtocols to urlSuffix as a comma-separated list, for example: enabledTLSProtocols=TLSv1.2,TLSv1.3
```
mgmt:
  api:
    spring:
      datasource:
        urlSuffix:
          enabledTLSProtocols: TLSv1.2,TLSv1.3
```
When enabling TLSv1.3 for DB connection, we need to be sure that TLSv1.3 is a valid client and https protocols in the jvmArguments"
```
mgmt:
  api:
    jvmArguments: "-Djdk.tls.client.protocols=TLSv1.2,TLSv1.3 -Dhttps.protocols=TLSv1.2,TLSv1.3"
```

Connect Reconciliation Jobs

When Connect support has been enabled, the Platform Manager uses two jobs to keep plugins and deployments in sync.

The plugins job retrieves the available plugins from an Axual Connect instance and updates the Self-Service.
The deployments job retrieves the connector status in an Axual Connect instance and compares it with the application deployment status, if they do not match, it updates the application deployment status in the Self-Service.

Edit the values.yaml for Platform Manager and add the following configuration to change the Quarts expressions, for example:

axual-governance:
  platform-manager:
    config:
      scheduler:
        reconciliation:
          connect:
            #  every 30 minutes
            deployments:
              cron: 0 */30 * ? * *
            plugins:
              cron: 0 0 */1 ? * *

Logging

Change the logging configuration by following these steps.
The Platform Manager is a primary source for Audit logging within the Axual Platform.

Metrics

The Platform Manager exposes the default Prometheus metrics via the Spring Boot Actuator, without additional custom metrics.
More info about Monitoring & Metrics here.