Deploy Memcached using Kubernetes Memcached Operator

In today’s world of containerized applications and orchestration, the successful deployment and maintenance of databases, such as Memcached, require a flexible and efficient approach. Kubernetes Memcached Operator —a tool that streamlines the intricate tasks of configuring, managing, and scaling Memcached databases within the Kubernetes environment.

Within this article, we will dive deep into the realm of Memcached database setup, leveraging the power of the Kubernetes Memcached Operator. We’ll explore its array of benefits, distinctive features, and provide you with a comprehensive, go to guide. With this solution, you’ll empower yourself with enhanced flexibility and automation for provisioning and administering your Memcached databases, all while embracing the containerized infrastructure’s best practices.

Why Memcached in Kubernetes

Kubernetes, commonly referred to as K8s, is an open-source platform designed for container orchestration that streamlines the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It offers a standardized approach to automating container deployment, managing their lifecycle, and ensuring availability and reliability. Kubernetes has emerged as the preferred solution for organizations aiming to build scalable, resilient, and efficient cloud-native applications.

Memcached is a high-speed, open-source, in-memory data store renowned for its versatility across numerous applications. While mainly used for caching, Memcached also excels as a solution for rapid data access, message queuing, and efficient computational task handling. Its sub-millisecond response times make it particularly well-suited for applications demanding extremely fast data retrieval.

Integrating the Kubernetes Memcached Operator offers significant advantages. Memcached’s ultra-fast, in-memory data retrieval ensures quick access to essential data, minimizing latency and boosting overall performance. Additionally, Kubernetes provides seamless scalability for containerized workloads, enabling easy expansion of Memcached instances as application data demands increase. The resilience inherent in Kubernetes also ensures that Memcached instances stay operational despite hardware or software disruptions, delivering reliable and fault-tolerant data caching.

Dynamic resource allocation in Kubernetes maximizes resource efficiency, improving cost-effectiveness. With the Kubernetes Memcached Operator, management is streamlined as Kubernetes automates essential tasks like deployment, scaling, and failover, while integrating effortlessly with monitoring tools to provide real-time insights into your Memcached database’s health. Within a Kubernetes environment, Memcached becomes essential for caching, session management, and real-time data handling in microservices architectures. In today’s cloud-native landscape, the Kubernetes Memcached Operator stands as a strategic choice for those requiring top-tier performance alongside scalable, resilient applications.

Deploy Memcached on Kubernetes

Pre-requisites

We have to configure the environment to deploy Memcached on Kubernetes using a Kubernetes Memcached operator. This tutorial requires you to have a functional Kubernetes cluster in place and a basic grasp of Memcached concepts. Here, we are going to create our kubernetes cluster using Kind. Also, you’ll require to install Helm to your Kubernetes cluster.

In this article, We will use the Kubernetes Memcached operator KubeDB to deploy Memcached on Kubernetes. But before we start, you need to make sure you have KubeDB already installed in your Kubernetes setup. To use KubeDB, you’ll also need a license, which you can get for free from the Appscode License Server. To get this license, you’ll need the Kubernetes cluster ID. You can find this ID by running the command we’ll provide below.

$ kubectl get ns kube-system -o jsonpath='{.metadata.uid}'
e5b4a1a0-5a67-4657-b390-db7200108bae

The license server will email us with a “license.txt” file attached after we provide the necessary data. To install KubeDB, run the following commands,

$ helm install kubedb oci://ghcr.io/appscode-charts/kubedb \
  --version v2024.9.30 \
  --namespace kubedb --create-namespace \
  --set-file global.license=/home/appscodepc/license.txt \
  --wait --burst-limit=10000 --debug \
  --set global.featureGates.Memcached=true

Verify the installation by the following command,

$ kubectl get pods --all-namespaces -l "app.kubernetes.io/instance=kubedb"
NAMESPACE   NAME                                            READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kubedb      kubedb-kubedb-autoscaler-7d98f45f84-fhttj       1/1     Running   0          37m
kubedb      kubedb-kubedb-ops-manager-64bdc96d99-85bhz      1/1     Running   0          37m
kubedb      kubedb-kubedb-provisioner-c765ffcd5-5pzxc       1/1     Running   0          37m
kubedb      kubedb-kubedb-webhook-server-7b97d994f8-m8lxw   1/1     Running   0          37m
kubedb      kubedb-petset-operator-6b5fddcd9-wl2cp          1/1     Running   0          37m
kubedb      kubedb-petset-webhook-server-59ff65f4fd-tg52g   2/2     Running   0          37m
kubedb      kubedb-sidekick-f8674fc4f-qkwtr                 1/1     Running   0          37m

We can go on to the next stage if every pod status is running.

Create a Namespace

Now we’ll create a new namespace in which we will deploy Memcached. To create a namespace, we can use the following command:

$ kubectl create namespace memcached-demo
namespace/memcached-demo created

Deploy Memcached via Kubernetes Memcached operator

We need to create a yaml configuration to deploy Memcached database on Kubernetes. And we will apply this yaml below,

apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1
kind: Memcached
metadata:
  name: memcd-quickstart
  namespace: memcached-demo
spec:
  replicas: 1
  version: "1.6.22"
  podTemplate:
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: memcached
          resources:
            limits:
              cpu: 500m
              memory: 128Mi
            requests:
              cpu: 250m
              memory: 64Mi
  deletionPolicy: WipeOut

You can see the detailed yaml specifications in the Kubernetes Memcached documentation.

We will save this yaml configuration to memcached.yaml. Then create the above Memcached object.

$ kubectl create -f memcached.yaml
memcached.kubedb.com/memcd-quickstart created

If all the above steps are handled correctly and the Memcached is deployed, you will see that the following objects are created:

$ kubectl get all -n memcached-demo
NAME                     READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/memcd-quickstart-0   1/1     Running   0          4m51s

NAME                            TYPE        CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)     AGE
service/memcd-quickstart        ClusterIP   10.96.70.253   <none>        11211/TCP   4m51s
service/memcd-quickstart-pods   ClusterIP   None           <none>        11211/TCP   4m51s

NAME                                                  TYPE                   VERSION   AGE
appbinding.appcatalog.appscode.com/memcd-quickstart   kubedb.com/memcached   1.6.22    4m51s

NAME                                    VERSION   STATUS   AGE
memcached.kubedb.com/memcd-quickstart   1.6.22    Ready    4m51s

We have successfully deployed Memcached to Kubernetes via the Kubernetes Memcached operator. Now, we will connect to the Memcached database to insert some sample data and verify whether our Memcached database is usable or not. First, check the database status,

$ kubectl get memcached -n memcached-demo
NAME               VERSION   STATUS   AGE
memcd-quickstart   1.6.22    Ready    6m50s

Here, we should have to obtain necessary credentials in order to connect to the database. Let’s export the credentials as environment variable to our current shell. KubeDB will create Secret and Service for the database Memcached-cluster that we have deployed. Let’s check them,

$ kubectl get secret -n memcached-demo -l=app.kubernetes.io/instance=memcd-quickstart
NAME                      TYPE     DATA   AGE
memcd-quickstart-config   Opaque   1      8m1s

$ kubectl get service -n memcached-demo -l=app.kubernetes.io/instance=memcd-quickstart
NAME                    TYPE        CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)     AGE
memcd-quickstart        ClusterIP   10.96.70.253   <none>        11211/TCP   8m58s
memcd-quickstart-pods   ClusterIP   None           <none>        11211/TCP   8m58s

Insert sample data to the Memcached database

In this section, we are going to login into our Memcached database pod and insert some sample data. First, we have to connect to this database using telnet. Here, we will connect to Memcached server from local-machine through port-forwarding.

$ kubectl get pods -n memcached-demo
NAME                 READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
memcd-quickstart-0   1/1     Running   0          13m

# We will connect to `memcd-quickstart-0` pod from local-machine using port-frowarding.
$ kubectl port-forward -n memcached-demo memcd-quickstart-0 11211
Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:11211 -> 11211
Forwarding from [::1]:11211 -> 11211

# Connect to Memcached from localmachine through telnet.
~ $ telnet 127.0.0.1 11211
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to 127.0.0.1.
Escape character is '^]'.

# Save data Command:
set my_key 0 2592000 1
2
# Output:
STORED

# Meaning:
# 0       => no flags
# 2592000 => TTL (Time-To-Live) in [s]
# 1       => size in bytes
# 2       => value

# View data command
get my_key
# Output
VALUE my_key 0 1
2
END

# Exit
quit

We’ve successfully deploy Memcached to Kubernetes via Kubernetes Memcached operator KubeDB and insert some sample data into it.

Memcached on Kubernetes: Best Practices

Implementing Memcached on Kubernetes with the Kubernetes Memcached Operator requires following best practices to ensure your application’s reliability and stability. To optimize your Memcached deployment within a Kubernetes environment, adhere to these essential recommendations.

• Version Compatibility: Ensure that the Memcached version you choose is compatible with the Kubernetes version you are currently using, especially when deploying with the Kubernetes Memcached Operator. Planning and rigorous testing are crucial, as compatibility issues can lead to unexpected behavior. For version upgrades, rolling upgrades are often recommended to minimize disruptions.

• Monitoring and Health Checks: Configure your Memcached pods for thorough monitoring and health checks. Kubernetes provides robust monitoring features, whereas Memcached delivers useful performance indicators. You may proactively find and fix performance bottlenecks or problems by gathering and evaluating these metrics, guaranteeing peak Memcached performance.

• Disaster Recovery Strategies: Create resilient disaster recovery strategies for Memcached to address data corruption, pod failures, and potential cluster-wide outages. Establishing clear, effective recovery plans reduces downtime and safeguards data integrity, ensuring continuity even in adverse conditions.

Conclusion

Memcached is a powerful, open-source in-memory data storage known for its remarkable performance and adaptability in handling real-time data needs. You have successfully deployed a Memcached database on Kubernetes, utilizing the Kubernetes Memcached Operator to manage and optimize various use cases effectively. For more details, refer to the official Memcached documentation. Effective database maintenance, whether on-premises or in the cloud, requires skill and consistent procedures. KubeDB offers a robust set of support tools to ensure your database management meets stringent performance and availability standards. Whether your database infrastructure is hosted locally, spans multiple regions, or is built on cloud-based or database-as-a-service platforms, KubeDB streamlines and enhances the entire process in a production-grade environment.