Book Image

Learn Helm

By : Andrew Block, Austin Dewey
Book Image

Learn Helm

By: Andrew Block, Austin Dewey

Overview of this book

Containerization is currently known to be one of the best ways to implement DevOps. While Docker introduced containers and changed the DevOps era, Google developed an extensive container orchestration system, Kubernetes, which is now considered the frontrunner in container orchestration. With the help of this book, you’ll explore the efficiency of managing applications running on Kubernetes using Helm. Starting with a short introduction to Helm and how it can benefit the entire container environment, you’ll then delve into the architectural aspects, in addition to learning about Helm charts and its use cases. You’ll understand how to write Helm charts in order to automate application deployment on Kubernetes. Focused on providing enterprise-ready patterns relating to Helm and automation, the book covers best practices for application development, delivery, and lifecycle management with Helm. By the end of this Kubernetes book, you will have learned how to leverage Helm to develop an enterprise pattern for application delivery.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
1
Section 1: Introduction and Setup
5
Section 2: Helm Chart Development
9
Section 3: Adanced Deployment Patterns
14
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Chapter 4: Understanding Helm Charts

In the previous chapter, you learned how to use Helm from an end user perspective, leveraging it as a package manager to install applications to Kubernetes. Using Helm in this fashion did not require any Kubernetes expertise or any deep understanding of the application since all of the resources and logic were included as part of a Helm chart. The only concept you needed to be familiar with were the values that the chart provided in order to customize your installation.

We will now shift gears from using Helm charts to understanding how they work and are created.

To do so, we will cover the following topics:

  • Understanding the YAML format
  • Understanding chart templates
  • Understanding chart definitions
  • Life cycle management
  • Documenting a Helm chart