Longterm Helm Charts Strategy: Decide on Alternatives to Bitnami

[artntek]

Bitnami is phasing out free use of versioned container images (and consequently no longer provides a versioned upgrade path for helm charts, unless we use the latest tag). We've addressed the short-term issue caused by this change (see Issue #65). Now we need to decide on a longterm strategy for helm chart use.

The purpose of this issue is to collect input and ideas towards that goal.

Possible Long-term Approaches

Less desirable

1. Re-assess whether helm is even the best way to go. Is there is a different k8s orchestration tool that would serve us better?
2. We could possibly automate building our own images from bitnami’s image definitions? (Risk is that they become NLA in future)

More desirable

1. Look at the open-source projects we use, to see if any projects have their own helm charts (eg like ingress-nginx does)
2. Maintain our own helm charts that reference the open source images? Do this in collaboration with others? e.g. ESS-DIVE has their own postrgesql chart

[artntek]

We Need Non-Bitnami Replacements for...

(add candidates inline)

• apache
• keycloak
• mariadb
• pgbouncer
  • ships with CNPG
• postgresql
  • ESS-DIVE postrgesql chart
  • CloudNativePG (CNPG) is an open-source operator designed to seamlessly manage PostgreSQL databases in Kubernetes environments.
  • Percona Operator for PostgreSQL automates and simplifies deploying and managing open source PostgreSQL clusters on Kubernetes. It is based on Postgres Operator developed by Crunchy Data.
• rabbitmq
  • Rabbitmq maintains an operator
    • quickstart
• solr
  • Apache Solr Operator
    • Quick Start Guide, Tutorials, Helm Chart
    • Official Helm Release on Artifact Hub
    • on GitHub
• wordpress
• zookeeper
  • optionally ships with the Solr operator

[mbjones]

POSTGRES

For Postgres, Gemini says the following:

Based on my search, here are two major, non-deprecated PostgreSQL Helm charts that are not maintained by Bitnami. Both charts are for operators, which manage the lifecycle of PostgreSQL clusters within Kubernetes.

1. CloudNativePG

• Project: CloudNativePG is an open-source project originally created and sponsored by EDB. It is now a CNCF Sandbox project.
• License: Apache License 2.0.
• Project URL: https://cloudnative-pg.io/
• GitHub Repository: https://github.com/cloudnative-pg/cloudnative-pg
• Associated Helm Chart Repository: The Helm charts are located within the cloudnative-pg/charts repository on GitHub. The chart can be added with helm repo add cnpg https://cloudnative-pg.github.io/charts.

2. Zalando Postgres Operator

• Project: The Postgres Operator was created and is maintained by Zalando SE.
• License: The project is under the MIT License.
• Project URL: The project has documentation at https://opensource.zalando.com/postgres-operator/ and https://postgres-operator.readthedocs.io/.
• GitHub Repository: https://github.com/zalando/postgres-operator
• Associated Helm Chart Repository: The Helm chart is included within the main project repository. The chart is located at ./charts/postgres-operator.

After conducting a search for non-operator PostgreSQL Helm charts, it has become clear that the landscape has shifted significantly. Most modern, production-ready Helm charts for PostgreSQL are now operator-based, as they are better suited for managing the complex state and lifecycle of a database.

The search results for "standalone" or "non-operator" charts repeatedly point back to the deprecated helm/charts repository, which has been archived. The prevailing sentiment in the Kubernetes community is that a simple, non-operator chart is generally not sufficient for production workloads due to the complexities of managing state, high availability, and backups.

[artntek]

SOLR Resources

Apache Solr Operator

• Quick Start Guide, Tutorials, Helm Chart
• Official Helm Release on Artifact Hub
• on GitHub