Consul is a Service Networking tool designed to connect applications and services across a multi-cloud world. With Consul, organizations can manage service discovery and health monitoring, automate their middleware and leverage service mesh to connect virtual machine environments and Kubernetes clusters.

1. Copyright © 2019 HashiCorp
Getting Started with
Kubernetes and
Consul

2. A Brief Intro...
Name: Cody De Arkland
Role: Technical Marketing Manager,
Consul
Twitter: @CodyDeArkland
GitHub: github.com/codyde

3. Agenda
▪ Consul Overview
▪ Consul Service Mesh Functionality
▪ Getting Started Resources
▪ Deploying Consul to Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service
▪ Deploying and Securing Applications to Kubernetes with Consul Connect

4. Applications in the datacenter were
logical…sometimes
● Monolithic applications with long-lived IPs
● Services manually scaled on a per-tier basis
● Well defined north-south traffic path
● Traditional perimeter based network security
But what happens when you move to clouds and have
modular applications and services with dynamic IPs?

5. The Shift from Static to Dynamic
● Modular services with dynamic IPs, running on bare metal, VMs, containers...
● 85% of volume from complex east-west traffic*
● Network perimeters blurring
● Traffic blending between multiple clouds/platforms

6. Thinking about Kubernetes...

7. HashiCorp Consul is a platform for
simplifying application networking in
a multi-cloud world

8. Consul
Provides a foundation of cloud network automation using a shared registry for
service based networking
50k+
Used at scale with
50k+ agents
1M+
Monthly D/Ls
Service registry & health monitoring to provide a
real-time directory of all services with their health status
Network middleware automation with service discovery
for dynamic reconfiguration as services scale up, down or
move
Application networking via service mesh enable and
secure service-to-service traffic with identity-based security
policies and encrypted traffic with Mutual-TLS

9. A Unified Networking Solution for Multi-Cloud

10. Consul Enterprise Functionality
https://www.consul.io/docs/enterprise/index.html
▪ Namespaces
▪ Automated Backups/Upgrades
▪ Enhancements to Read Scalability
▪ Network Segments
▪ Redundancy Zones
▪ Advanced Federation

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© 2019 HashiCorp
Service
Discovery
Service registry, integrated
health checks, and DNS and
API interfaces enable any
service to register and
discover each other across
multiple runtime platforms,
data centers or clouds
Service
Segmentation
Service identity-based
security policies and
encrypted communication
by mutual TLS, consistently
enforced across
heterogeneous
environments
Layer 7
Observability
Enable networking metric
collection, distributed
tracking and logging via
proxies to provide insights
into application behavior
and performance without
application code
modification.
Layer 7 Traffic
Management
Layer 7 traffic management,
such as HTTP path based
routing, traffic shifting, and
advanced failover, enable
dynamic routing to support
different deployment
strategies and improve
application resiliency.
Mesh Gateway
Transparently and securely
proxy traffic across multiple
network environments,
without needing to worry
about overlapping IPs or
configuring point-to-point
VPN tunneling
Centralized
Configuration
Configure and manage
traffic management policies,
security policies and proxy
configurations from a
central location.
Automatically update
distributed proxies without
redeployment
Consul Service
Mesh
Features

12. 1
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2
5
3
6
© 2019 HashiCorp
Service
Discovery
Service registry, integrated
health checks, and DNS and
API interfaces enable any
service to register and
discover each other across
multiple runtime platforms,
data centers or clouds
Service
Segmentation
Service identity-based
security policies and
encrypted communication
by mutual TLS, consistently
enforced across
heterogeneous
environments
Layer 7
Observability
Enable networking metric
collection, distributed
tracking and logging via
proxies to provide insights
into application behavior
and performance without
application code
modification.
Layer 7 Traffic
Management
Layer 7 traffic management,
such as HTTP path based
routing, traffic shifting, and
advanced failover, enable
dynamic routing to support
different deployment
strategies and improve
application resiliency.
Mesh Gateway
Transparently and securely
proxy traffic across multiple
network environments,
without needing to worry
about overlapping IPs or
configuring point-to-point
VPN tunneling
Centralized
Configuration
Configure and manage
traffic management policies,
security policies and proxy
configurations from a
central location.
Automatically update
distributed proxies without
redeployment
Consul Service
Mesh
Features

13. Getting Started Resources
Consul Helm Chart -
https://github.com/hashicorp/consul-helm
Consul Helm Chart Reference -
https://www.consul.io/docs/platform/k8s/run.html
Consul Learn Guides for Kubernetes -
https://learn.hashicorp.com/consul?track=kubernetes#kubernetes

14. Demonstration Details
Kubernetes Environment: Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service
Alternative Local Kubernetes Environment: Shipyard or Kubernetes in Docker
(KIND)
Demonstration Application: Multi-Tier Demo Application

15. Let’s Get Hands On With Consul and
Kubernetes!

16. Live Q&A

17. Thank You
cody@hashicorp.com
www.hashicorp.com
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