Kubernetes Kapsule and Kosmos

Discover Kubernetes Kapsule and Kosmos - a managed Kubernetes service.

What is Kubernetes Kapsule and Kubernetes Kosmos?

Kubernetes is an open-source platform that enables developers to manage their containerized applications. Scaleway Kubernetes Kapsule and Kosmos are powerful tools to help you manage your containerized workloads and services.

They both provide a managed environment for creating, configuring, and running clusters of pre-configured machines.

The primary difference between Kapsule and Kosmos is that Kapsule clusters are composed solely of Scaleway Instances. In contrast, Kosmos is a managed Multi-Cloud Kubernetes Engine that allows you to connect Instances and virtual or dedicated servers from any cloud provider to a single managed Control-Plane.

Regardless of which option you choose, both Kapsule and Kosmos provide an easy-to-use interface for managing your Kubernetes clusters, with the Control-Plane hosted by Scaleway. You can use the standardized Kubernetes tool kubectl to run commands against your Kubernetes clusters and take full advantage of the features and capabilities of the orchestrator.

Currently it is available in our Paris (France), Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Warsaw (Poland) Availability Zones and supports at least the latest version of the last 3 major Kubernetes releases.

How much am I billed for one cluster?

The price of the service will depend on the resources you allocate to your cluster, such as the number and type of nodes, the use of load balancers and persistent volumes. Nodes are billed at the same price as the underlying Compute Instances.

The Kubernetes control plane is provided without additional costs.

How much am I billed if I have enabled the auto-scaling feature?

If you enable auto-scaling, you will be able to define a minimum and a maximum number of machines that are available for your pool.

If the workload of your infrastructure is low, only the minimum number of machines will be running. If the load grows, additional machines are started automatically up to the maximum number of machines in the pool, to handle the workload on your application. If the load decreases, these additional machines will be stopped automatically.

How can I have data persistence on my cluster?

Kapsule is a managed Kubernetes engine. By definition, the nodes of your clusters can be deleted, replaced, or restarted if the applications running on it require it or if a node suddenly stops responding. It means that Kubernetes clusters’ nodes are to be considered stateless. If you require a stateful application, you can use Persistent Volumes. The storageClass for Scaleway Block Storage volumes is set by default, so it does not need to be specified. For more information, refer to the Kubernetes Kapsule product documentation on GitHub.

What is the service ‘kapsule-agent’ running on my nodes?

kapsule-agent is a software developed internally at Scaleway and used to assist in managing the lifecycle of nodes. Its primary function is to set up the network during the initial boot, and toggle the SSH server on or off based on a k8s label of each node.

Why cannot I connect to my nodes using SSH?

Kubernetes Kapsule manages your nodes. To ensure the behavior of your cluster, it is not possible to perform actions directly on the nodes. There is no need to connect to them directly, as all actions and configurations should be done using Kubernetes (from the Scaleway Console, kubectl command, or Scaleway Kapsule APIs).