The Hamburg-based company formerly operating under the name Loodse has submitted version 2. 15 of its Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform (KKP). Support for external clusters promises system administrators more flexibility in setting up their Kubernetes environments. In addition, Kubermatic has revised the etcd launcher and introduces a new, simpler KKP installer.

Central administration of any cluster The Kubernetes automation platform, available as open source under the Apache 2.0 license, provides a central management console for managing Kubernetes clusters. With the release of Version 2. 15, KKP now also supports external clusters, so that users can integrate any Kubernetes cluster into existing projects – a kubeconfig file and the cluster name are sufficient. KKP then calls up the list of connected nodes, events and metrics and displays them in the user interface next to the Kubermatic clusters.

For simplified cluster management the new etcd launcher, which is initially available as a technical preview in the new release, should also contribute. While KKP previously operated a static 3-node etcd ring for each user Kubernetes cluster, the new launcher provides a wrapper that operates the etcd ring. This should enable users to expand the etcd ring to up to 9 nodes in the future. User clusters should also become more resilient, as the new launcher enables the etcd ring to be automatically restored from a volume or node.

Automated upgrades and installations The new KKP installer, which should further simplify installation processes in the future, is also still in the status of a technical preview. Unlike the KKP operator introduced in the previous version, who manages the platform, the new installer is intended to be used to install and update the operator and external components such as nginx-ingress-controller or cert-manager. In the first step let