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Getting Started

Direction Ankra

How does Ankra work?​

You can access the platform via a unique URL assigned to your organisation during creation. The URL will typically be in the format of https://<company-name>.ankra.app, but this can be customized during sign-up. Once you have logged in you will be presented with the dashboard. The dashboard will show you the status of your applications and the status of your clusters.

Once your into the platform you will be eager to deploy your first application, from source to production. To achieve this, you will need to take a few preporation steps to setup the foundation it is built on.

The minimal requirements to deploy an application are:

  • A project - A project is a collection of all the resources that are isolated from other projects.

  • Credentials - Credentials are used to connect to your cloud service provider, DNS provider, source control provider and container registry.

  • A cluster - With the cloud provider crednetials you provided in the previous step, creating a kubernetes cluster is used to build and test your application. Optionally you can also deploy your application to this cluster or a seperate cluster, all as part as a single pipeline.

  • DNS Configuration - This is used to configure your DNS provider to point to your application. With the cloud provider crednetials you provided in the previous step, configure the DNS so every application deployed will be automatically configured with a DNS entry.

  • An application - This is the application you want to deploy. This can be a docker image and a helm chart.

By doing this, you gain the automation and efficiancies of Ankra platform while still owning the resources we generate for you. This means your intellectual property is safe and secure on hardware that you own.

Each Ankra Platform comes with a Harbor preconfigured. This is a private docker registry that will be used to store your docker images. This will be used to deploy your application to your clusters. By providing this solution by default, users can get started quickly from the start without pre-configuring critical infrasutructure components.

Preparation Steps​

Select your Project​

The first step is to select your project. This will be the project that your application will be deployed to. You can create a new project or select an existing project. If you are creating a new project you will need to provide a name and a description. This will be used to identify your project.

Read More: Projects

Credentials​

Ankra Platform allow our users to connect their own accounts. This allows users to benefit the best of both worlds, the automation and insights of ankra while have full control over their accounts and not have to worry about manual interactions and management that typically comes having ownership of your assets.

We also allow users to connect multiple accounts of the same type to the platform. This allows users to have multiple environments for example, a development environment and a production environment.

The minimal required credentials to deploy an application are:

  1. Add Credentials to your Cloud Service Providers (AWS).
  2. Add Credentials to your DNS Provider (Cloudflare).
  3. Add Credentials to your Source Control Provider (Github, BitBucket).
  4. Add Credentials to your Container Registry (Harbor) (Optional).

Read More: Credentials

DNS Configuration​

Before you can begin deploying your application you will need to configure your DNS provider to point to your application. With the credentials for your DNS provider, throught added a simple annotation and use of ingresses in kubernetes, you application can serve traffic from a domain name without any manual configuration.

Create a Cluster​

Before you can begin deploying your application you will needed to kubernetes clusters to be used for building, testing and a place for your application to run. With the credentials for your cloud service provider, you can create a cluster. This will be used to build and test your application. Once you have created your cluster you will need to add it to the platform. This will allow you to use the cluster to build and test your application.

Read More: Clusters

Deploy your application​

Head over to Applications the resources to create your application.

Read More: Applications