Getting Started with Kubernetes Data Management using the AWS Marketplace

If you are already using Amazon Web Services to run your Kubernetes applications and looking for a starting point to run stateful applications in Kubernetes such as message queues and databases, the Portworx AWS Marketplace offering may be just the ticket. Portworx announced it’s now available in the AWS Marketplace in September 2020 and using the AWS Marketplace allows for a seamless installation and billing experience for Portworx customers running in AWS. Getting started with Portworx is as simple as performing the following steps.

1. Launch or use an EKS cluster
2. Subscribe to Portoworx in the AWS Marketplace
3. Connect your EKS cluster to your subscription
4. Install Portworx via Helm

That’s it, no purchase order or license requests and seamless usage of Portworx in AWS to run stateful applications in Kubernetes. Let’s walk through the steps necessary to get yourself going using the Portworx AWS Marketplace offering.

Getting Started

First, you will need an AWS account, if you have not done this yet, sign up. Then head over to the landing page for Portworx on AWS Marketplace. You can get to the landing page by clicking on this link.

Select the product you want to work with, such as Portworx Enterprise and click the “Continue to subscribe” button.

Next, continue through to the Configuration.

Select your delivery method and version of Portworx.

Next, click “continue to launch”.

Click on the “Usage Instructions” to be taken to the documentation site containing the steps you need to complete.

Connect Subscription to an EKS cluster

In order for you to connect your subscription, you will either need an existing EKS cluster or you can create one. If you need to create a new cluster, take a look at our documentation for creating an EKS cluster ready for Portworx.

> Note, you will need to install helm and eksctl.

Let’s say you have an EKS cluster in the US-East-1 region and it is named “px-eksctl-cluster”. What you would need to do is associate the IAM Provider with your cluster, then create a service account that allows for AWS metering and billing. See the examples below.

eksctl utils associate-iam-oidc-provider --region=us-east-1 --cluster=px-eksctl-cluster --approve

eksctl create iamserviceaccount --name portworx-aws --namespace kube-system \
 --cluster px-eksctl-cluster \
 --attach-policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AWSMarketplaceMeteringFullAccess \
 --attach-policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AWSMarketplaceMeteringRegisterUsage \
 --approve --override-existing-serviceaccounts

Next, add the Portworx helm repository.

helm repo add portworx https://docs.aws.amazon.com/prescriptive-guidance/latest/patterns/set-up-a-helm-v3-chart-repository-in-amazon-s3.html

Then, install Portworx. This example uses mostly defaults, but defined every storage node should have a 100GB GP2 EBS drive for Portworx to aggregate.

helm install my-portworx portworx/portworx --set storage.drives="type=gp2\,size=100" --set serviceAccount="portworx-aws"

After 3-5 minutes, your Portworx cluster should be ready.

PX_POD=$(kubectl get pods -l name=portworx -n kube-system -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')

kubectl exec -it $PX_POD -n kube-system -c portworx -- /opt/pwx/bin/pxctl status

That’s it. I hope this was useful. Getting started using the AWS Marketplace is simple and fast and you will be well on your way to running stateful applications in Kubernetes. Check out these examples of stateful applications for next steps. If you prefer to watch a video walkthrough of these steps, watch below.

Until next time, enjoy.