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Canary Analysis & Progressive Delivery Using Argo Rollout and SkyWalking

This document describes how you can configure Argo CD & integrate Argo Rollout with TSB GitOps support and use SkyWalking as the metrics provider for canary deployment analysis and progressive delivery automation

Before you get started, make sure:
✓ Argo CD is installed in your cluster and Argo CD CLI is configured to connect to your Argo CD server
✓ Argo Rollout is installed in your cluster
✓ TSB is up and running, and GitOps has been enabled for the target cluster

Create an Application from a Git repository​

Create a sample application using the below command. An example repository containing Istio's bookinfo application and TSB configurations is available at https://github.com/tetrateio/tsb-gitops-demo. You can either use Argo CD CLI or their web UI to import application configurations directly from Git.

argocd app create bookinfo-app --repo https://github.com/tetrateio/tsb-gitops-demo.git --path application --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc --dest-namespace bookinfo --sync-policy automated --self-heal

Check the status of your application

argocd app get bookinfo-app
Output
Name:               bookinfo-app
Project:            default
Server:             https://kubernetes.default.svc
Namespace:          bookinfo
URL:                https://localhost:8080/applications/bookinfo-app
Repo:               https://github.com/tetrateio/tsb-gitops-demo.git
Target:             
Path:               argo/app
SyncWindow:         Sync Allowed
Sync Policy:        Automated
Sync Status:        Synced to (1ba8e2d)
Health Status:      Healthy

GROUP  KIND            NAMESPACE  NAME                  STATUS     HEALTH   HOOK  MESSAGE
       Namespace       bookinfo   bookinfo              Running    Synced         namespace/bookinfo created
       ServiceAccount  bookinfo   bookinfo-details      Synced                    serviceaccount/bookinfo-details created
       ServiceAccount  bookinfo   bookinfo-productpage  Synced                    serviceaccount/bookinfo-productpage created
       ServiceAccount  bookinfo   bookinfo-ratings      Synced                    serviceaccount/bookinfo-ratings created
       ServiceAccount  bookinfo   bookinfo-reviews      Synced                    serviceaccount/bookinfo-reviews created
       Service         bookinfo   productpage           Synced     Healthy        service/productpage created
       Service         bookinfo   details               Synced     Healthy        service/details created
       Service         bookinfo   ratings               Synced     Healthy        service/ratings created
       Service         bookinfo   reviews               Synced     Healthy        service/reviews created
apps   Deployment      bookinfo   ratings-v1            Synced     Healthy        deployment.apps/ratings-v1 created
apps   Deployment      bookinfo   productpage-v1        Synced     Healthy        deployment.apps/productpage-v1 created
apps   Deployment      bookinfo   reviews               OutOfSync  Healthy        deployment.apps/reviews created
apps   Deployment      bookinfo   details-v1            Synced     Healthy        deployment.apps/details-v1 created
       Namespace                  bookinfo              Synced

Application Setup​

If you already have kubernetes manifests created for deployment and service resource, You can choose to keep the same objects along with Argo Rollout object for facilitating the canary deployments. You can make necessary changes to Rollout object and TSB mesh configuration of Istio VirtualService/DestinationRule to achieve the desired result.

TSB Configuration Setup​

Since Argo Rollout require you to make some modifications on Istio VirtualService & DestinatrionRule object according to their canary deployment strategy convention for Istio, You can use TSB DIRECT mode configuration to achieve the desired result.

  • According to Argo Rollout convention, 2 subsets named stable and canary needs to be configured with necessary labels in TSB direct mode resources like VirtualService & DestinationRule to identify canary and stable pods.
  • Please make sure the version labels eg: version: canary/stable has been configured according to Istio convention for TSB to recognize the subsets and plot the metrics in service dashboard.
  • When using TSB direct mode resources with GitOps, there is an additional label istio.io/rev: "tsb" that needs to be added to the resources. Please refer here for more details.

Create a bookinfo-tsb-conf app by importing the TSB configurations from tsb-gitops-demo/argo/tsb/conf.yaml. You can also choose to keep it in the same repo.

argocd app create bookinfo-tsb-conf --repo https://github.com/tetrateio/tsb-gitops-demo.git --path argo/tsb --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc --dest-namespace bookinfo --sync-policy automated --self-heal

Check the status of TSB resources

argocd app get bookinfo-tsb-conf
Output
Name:               bookinfo-tsb-conf
Project:            default
Server:             https://kubernetes.default.svc
Namespace:          bookinfo
URL:                https://localhost:8080/applications/bookinfo-tsb-conf
Repo:               https://github.com/tetrateio/tsb-gitops-demo.git
Target:             
Path:               argo/tsb
SyncWindow:         Sync Allowed
Sync Policy:        Automated
Sync Status:        Synced to (1ba8e2d)
Health Status:      Healthy

GROUP                    KIND             NAMESPACE     NAME                               STATUS     HEALTH  HOOK  MESSAGE
networking.istio.io      VirtualService   bookinfo      bookinfo                           Synced                   virtualservice.networking.istio.io/bookinfo created
tsb.tetrate.io           Tenant           bookinfo      bookinfo                           Synced                   tenant.tsb.tetrate.io/bookinfo unchanged
networking.istio.io      Gateway          bookinfo      bookinfo-gateway                   Synced                   gateway.networking.istio.io/bookinfo-gateway unchanged
traffic.tsb.tetrate.io   Group            bookinfo      bookinfo-traffic                   Synced                   group.traffic.tsb.tetrate.io/bookinfo-traffic unchanged
security.tsb.tetrate.io  Group            bookinfo      bookinfo-security                  Synced                   group.security.tsb.tetrate.io/bookinfo-security unchanged
gateway.tsb.tetrate.io   Group            bookinfo      bookinfo-gateway                   Synced                   group.gateway.tsb.tetrate.io/bookinfo-gateway unchanged
tsb.tetrate.io           Workspace        bookinfo      bookinfo-ws                        Synced                   workspace.tsb.tetrate.io/bookinfo-ws unchanged
networking.istio.io      VirtualService   bookinfo      details                            Synced                   virtualservice.networking.istio.io/details unchanged
networking.istio.io      DestinationRule  bookinfo      productpage                        Synced                   destinationrule.networking.istio.io/productpage unchanged
networking.istio.io      DestinationRule  bookinfo      details                            Synced                   destinationrule.networking.istio.io/details unchanged
networking.istio.io      VirtualService   bookinfo      ratings                            Synced                   virtualservice.networking.istio.io/ratings unchanged
networking.istio.io      DestinationRule  bookinfo      reviews                            Synced                   destinationrule.networking.istio.io/reviews unchanged
networking.istio.io      DestinationRule  bookinfo      ratings                            Synced                   destinationrule.networking.istio.io/ratings unchanged
networking.istio.io      VirtualService   bookinfo      reviews                            Synced                   virtualservice.networking.istio.io/reviews unchanged
install.tetrate.io       IngressGateway   bookinfo      tsb-gateway-bookinfo               Synced                   ingressgateway.install.tetrate.io/tsb-gateway-bookinfo unchanged

Verify application​

Run the below command to export LB ip of tsb-gateway-bookinfo

export GATEWAY_IP=$(kubectl -n bookinfo get service tsb-gateway-bookinfo -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}')

Confirm that you can access bookinfo application. As you can see in the response, review v1 service which we have currently deployed doesn't call ratings service.

curl -v "http://bookinfo.tetrate.com/api/v1/products/1/reviews" \
    --resolve "bookinfo.tetrate.com:80:$GATEWAY_IP" \
    -H "X-B3-Sampled: 1"
Output
* Mark bundle as not supporting multiuse
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< content-type: application/json
< content-length: 361
< server: istio-envoy
< date: Mon, 22 Aug 2022 06:36:52 GMT
< x-envoy-upstream-service-time: 782
<
* Connection #0 to host bookinfo.tetrate.com left intact
{"id": "1", "podname": "reviews-rollout-56ff4b868c-74d8t", "clustername": "null", "reviews": [{"reviewer": "Reviewer1", "text": "An extremely entertaining play by Shakespeare. The slapstick humour is refreshing!"}, {"reviewer": "Reviewer2", "text": "Absolutely fun and entertaining. The play lacks thematic depth when compared to other plays by Shakespeare."}]}

Setup Argo Rollout​

Argo Rollout provides multiple options to migrate your existing kubernetes deployment object into Argo's Rollout object. You can either convert an existing k8s deployment object to Rollout or you can refer your existing k8s deployment from a Rollout object using workloadRef. We will be following the latter approach in this example.

In this example we will be doing a canary deployment of reviews service to demonstrate Rollout object configurations and how it is facilitating the traffic shifting to both primary and canary deployment of reviews service.

  • Create a Rollout resource and refer your existing deployment using workloadRef.
  • Make sure selector matchLabels has been configured based on your k8s application deployment manifest.
  • Configure strategy as canary with subset level traffic splitting.
  • Configure canaryMetadata & stableMetadata to inject labels and annotations on canary and stable pods.
  • Please make sure the labels of canaryMetadata and stableMetadata are consistent with TSB direct mode configurations here.
  • Configure Istio virtualService and destinationRule under trafficRouting based on the TSB direct mode configurations.
  • Once the Rollout object is created, it will spin up the required number of pods side-by-side along with the k8s deployment pods.
  • Once all the Rollout pods are up and running, you can scale down your existing k8s deployment to 0 by changing the replicas.
  • Rollout object won't modify your existing k8s deployment, Traffic would be shifted to the pods managed by Rollout object once the subset is updated in VirtualService.

rollout.yaml

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Rollout
metadata:
  name: reviews-rollout
spec:
  replicas: 5
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: reviews
  workloadRef:
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    name: reviews
  strategy:
    canary:
      analysis:
        templates:
        - templateName: apdex
        startingStep: 2
        args:
        - name: service-name
          value: canary|reviews|bookinfo|cp-cluster-1|-
      canaryMetadata:
        annotations:
          version: canary
        labels:
          version: canary
          service.istio.io/canonical-revision: canary
      stableMetadata:
        annotations:
          version: stable
        labels:
          version: stable
          service.istio.io/canonical-revision: stable
      trafficRouting:
        istio:
          virtualService: 
            name: reviews
          destinationRule:
            name: reviews    
            canarySubsetName: canary  
            stableSubsetName: stable
      steps:
      - setWeight: 10
      - pause: {duration: 10m}
      - setWeight: 20
      - pause: {duration: 10m}
      - setWeight: 40
      - pause: {duration: 10m}
      - setWeight: 60
      - pause: {duration: 10m}
      - setWeight: 80
      - pause: {duration: 10m}

Configure Canary Analysis Template with SkyWalking​

SkyWalking, an observability component bundled in TSB, can serve as a metrics provider to support canary deployment analysis, enabling automatic promotion or rollback actions Please refer Analysis & Progressive delivery in Argo Rollout and how SkyWalking can be used as a metrics provider for more details.

  • Create canary AnalysisTemplate using skywalking as the metrics provider to drive auto promotion/rollback based on the deployment analysis.
  • SkyWalking metrics can be fetched by connecting to OAP service graphql endpoint i.e http://oap.istio-system:12800 installed on TSB ControlPlane Cluster.
  • Success condition is derived using Apdex score. Please read Apdex score for measuring service mesh health for more details.
  • Subset name of canary deployment needs to be configured as an argument service-name in the analysis template.
  • TSB service name in SkyWalking follows the format subset|service name|namespace name|cluster name|-. Since we are using reviews service, use canary|reviews|bookinfo|cp-cluster-1|- as service-name value in Rollout resource.
  • Configure the same AnalysisTemplate details in the Rollout object canary analysis.

analysis.yaml

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: AnalysisTemplate
metadata:
  name: apdex
spec:
  args:
  - name: service-name
  metrics:
  - name: apdex
    interval: 5m
    successCondition: "all(result.service_apdex.values.values, {asFloat(.value) >= 9900})"
    failureLimit: 3
    provider:
      skywalking:
        interval: 3m
        address: http://oap.istio-system:12800
        query: |
          query queryData($duration: Duration!) {
            service_apdex: readMetricsValues(
              condition: { name: "service_apdex", entity: { scope: Service, serviceName: "{{ args.service-name }}", normal: true } },
              duration: $duration) {
                label values { values { value } }
              }
          }

Create Rollout​

Run the below command to create a rollout app

argocd app create reviews-rollout --repo https://github.com/tetrateio/tsb-gitops-demo.git --path argo/rollout --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc --dest-namespace bookinfo --sync-policy automated --self-heal

Check the status

argocd app get reviews-rollout
Output
Name:               reviews-rollout
Project:            default
Server:             https://kubernetes.default.svc
Namespace:          bookinfo
URL:                https://localhost:8080/applications/reviews-rollout
Repo:               https://github.com/tetrateio/tsb-gitops-demo.git
Target:             
Path:               argo/rollout
SyncWindow:         Sync Allowed
Sync Policy:        Automated
Sync Status:        Synced to (1ba8e2d)
Health Status:      Healthy

GROUP        KIND              NAMESPACE  NAME             STATUS  HEALTH   HOOK  MESSAGE
argoproj.io  AnalysisTemplate  bookinfo   apdex            Synced                 analysistemplate.argoproj.io/apdex created
argoproj.io  Rollout           bookinfo   reviews-rollout  Synced  Healthy        rollout.argoproj.io/reviews-rollout created

Trigger Canary Deployment​

Update the reviews service deployment image to v2 version. This will immediately trigger a canary deployment of reviews v2 and will modify the traffic percentage as 90/10.

kubectl argo rollouts set image reviews-rollout reviews=docker.io/istio/examples-bookinfo-reviews-v2:1.16.4 -n bookinfo

Monitor Canary Deployment​

Run the below command to monitor your canary deployment.

kubectl argo rollouts get rollout reviews-rollout --watch -n bookinfo
Output
Name:            reviews-rollout
Namespace:       bookinfo
Status:          ॥ Paused
Message:         CanaryPauseStep
Strategy:        Canary
  Step:          1/10
  SetWeight:     10
  ActualWeight:  10
Images:          docker.io/istio/examples-bookinfo-reviews-v1:1.16.4 (stable)
                 docker.io/istio/examples-bookinfo-reviews-v2:1.16.4 (canary)
Replicas:
  Desired:       5
  Current:       6
  Updated:       1
  Ready:         6
  Available:     6

NAME                                         KIND        STATUS     AGE    INFO
⟳ reviews-rollout                            Rollout     ॥ Paused   6m13s
├──# revision:2
│  └──⧉ reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb           ReplicaSet  ✔ Healthy  21s    canary
│     └──□ reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb-86mbt  Pod         ✔ Running  19s    ready:2/2
└──# revision:1
   └──⧉ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9           ReplicaSet  ✔ Healthy  6m13s  stable
      ├──□ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9-27mth  Pod         ✔ Running  6m12s  ready:2/2
      ├──□ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9-8qqpx  Pod         ✔ Running  6m11s  ready:2/2
      ├──□ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9-9bqbv  Pod         ✔ Running  6m11s  ready:2/2
      ├──□ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9-cgxgd  Pod         ✔ Running  6m11s  ready:2/2
      └──□ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9-d447w  Pod         ✔ Running  6m11s  ready:2/2

Generate Traffic​

Run the below command to send some requests to bookinfo application.

while true; do curl -m 5 -v -H "X-B3-Sampled: 1" "http://bookinfo.tetrate.com/api/v1/products/1/reviews" --resolve "bookinfo.tetrate.com:80:$GATEWAY_IP";  sleep 2 ; done ;

As you can see, some of the response will have the response from ratings service as reviews-v2 calls ratings service.

> GET /api/v1/products/1/reviews HTTP/1.1
> Host: bookinfo.tetrate.com
> User-Agent: curl/7.79.1
> Accept: */*
> Content-Length: 0
> Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
>
* Mark bundle as not supporting multiuse
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< content-type: application/json
< content-length: 437
< server: istio-envoy
< date: Mon, 22 Aug 2022 06:53:14 GMT
< x-envoy-upstream-service-time: 45
<
* Connection #0 to host bookinfo.tetrate.com left intact
{"id": "1", "podname": "reviews-66f8dddb8c-84pk6", "clustername": "null", "reviews": [{"reviewer": "Reviewer1", "text": "An extremely entertaining play by Shakespeare. The slapstick humour is refreshing!", "rating": {"stars": 5, "color": "black"}}, {"reviewer": "Reviewer2", "text": "Absolutely fun and entertaining. The play lacks thematic depth when compared to other plays by Shakespeare.", "rating": {"stars": 4, "color": "black"}}]}

Monitor Performance Metrics in TSB​

You can monitor the health of each service instance of both canary and stable pods from TSB service dashboard.

service dashboard which shows both stable and canary subsets

service instance metrics for subset canary &amp; stable

service topology which shows only reviews-canary is calling ratings-v1 service

Canary Analysis and Auto Promotion​

As we have configured in the rollout object, canary analysis is going to run from the second phase onwards as it wait for the first phase to complete in 10 minutes to build some metrics. From the second phase onwards, AnalysisRun i.e an instantiation of the AnalysisTemplate is going to get executed, based on the configured interval. For every completed run, based on the status of succesfull or failed, argo decides whether to promote/rollback the canary deployment based on the max failureLimit configured in AnalysisTemplate.

During Canary Analysis​

kubectl argo rollouts promote reviews-rollout --full -n bookinfo
Output
Name:            reviews-rollout
Namespace:       bookinfo
Status:          ॥ Paused
Message:         CanaryPauseStep
Strategy:        Canary
  Step:          5/10
  SetWeight:     40
  ActualWeight:  40
Images:          docker.io/istio/examples-bookinfo-reviews-v1:1.16.4 (stable)
                 docker.io/istio/examples-bookinfo-reviews-v2:1.16.4 (canary)
Replicas:
  Desired:       5
  Current:       7
  Updated:       2
  Ready:         7
  Available:     7

NAME                                         KIND         STATUS     AGE   INFO
⟳ reviews-rollout                            Rollout      ॥ Paused   24m
├──# revision:2
│  ├──⧉ reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb           ReplicaSet   ✔ Healthy  18m   canary
│  │  ├──□ reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb-86mbt  Pod          ✔ Running  18m   ready:2/2
│  │  └──□ reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb-9ghh2  Pod          ✔ Running  3m4s  ready:2/2
│  └──α reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb-2         AnalysisRun  ◌ Running  8m4s  ✔ 2
└──# revision:1
   └──⧉ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9           ReplicaSet   ✔ Healthy  24m   stable
      ├──□ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9-27mth  Pod          ✔ Running  24m   ready:2/2
      ├──□ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9-8qqpx  Pod          ✔ Running  24m   ready:2/2
      ├──□ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9-9bqbv  Pod          ✔ Running  24m   ready:2/2
      ├──□ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9-cgxgd  Pod          ✔ Running  24m   ready:2/2
      └──□ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9-d447w  Pod          ✔ Running  24m   ready:2/2

After Successful Promotion​

Once all the steps gets executed with a successfull analysis run, argo completely rollout the image to version v2 and marks that as stable.

kubectl argo rollouts get rollout reviews-rollout --watch -n bookinfo
Output
Name:            reviews-rollout
Namespace:       bookinfo
Status:          ✔ Healthy
Strategy:        Canary
  Step:          10/10
  SetWeight:     100
  ActualWeight:  100
Images:          docker.io/istio/examples-bookinfo-reviews-v2:1.16.4 (stable)
Replicas:
  Desired:       5
  Current:       5
  Updated:       5
  Ready:         5
  Available:     5

NAME                                         KIND         STATUS        AGE    INFO
⟳ reviews-rollout                            Rollout      ✔ Healthy     3d20h
├──# revision:2
│  ├──⧉ reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb           ReplicaSet   ✔ Healthy     3d20h  stable
│  │  ├──□ reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb-757hf  Pod          ✔ Running     3d20h  ready:2/2
│  │  ├──□ reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb-tlt8z  Pod          ✔ Running     3d20h  ready:2/2
│  │  ├──□ reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb-hwqnd  Pod          ✔ Running     3d20h  ready:2/2
│  │  ├──□ reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb-hnfzb  Pod          ✔ Running     3d20h  ready:2/2
│  │  └──□ reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb-h5zrw  Pod          ✔ Running     3d20h  ready:2/2
│  └──α reviews-rollout-867b9c9bcb-2         AnalysisRun  ✔ Successful  3d20h  ✔ 5
└──# revision:1
   └──⧉ reviews-rollout-5d9dc876c9           ReplicaSet   • ScaledDown  3d20h

Manual Promotion of Canary Deployment​

You can either do a step promote which will proceed to the next steps mentioned in the Rollout by changing the traffic weight and it will eventually rollout the new version completely or you can do a full promote to the desired version by skipping analysis, pauses, and steps.

# step promotion
kubectl argo rollouts promote reviews-rollout -n bookinfo

# full promotion
kubectl argo rollouts promote reviews-rollout --full -n bookinfo