Planning a DataStax Mission Control Installation

DataStax Mission Control is current in Private Preview. It is subject to the beta agreement executed between you and DataStax. DataStax Mission Control is not intended for production use, has not been certified for production workloads, and might contain bugs and other functional issues. There is no guarantee that DataStax Mission Control will ever become generally available. DataStax Mission Control is provided on an “AS IS” basis, without warranty or indemnity of any kind.

If you are interested in trying out DataStax Mission Control please contact your DataStax account team.

When planning your deployment of DataStax Mission Control it is important to understand the terms and topologies of resources. Review the following topics to identify the type of topology and deployment roles for each target cluster and to outline the steps for ensuring a smooth installation experience.

Deployment topology

DataStax Mission Control is a singular interface for the management of multiple DataStax Enterprise clusters spanning disjointed geographies, cloud providers, hardware, and workloads. An enterprise may choose to deploy one instance for their entire organization, dedicate multiple targeted installations to specific groups, or even pursue a dedicated instance per environment within their DEV, TEST, and PROD deployments. Simplistic examples are provided, focusing on a single installation at the top-level of an enterprise. However, the guidance applies across all enterprise levels.

Organization-level DataStax Mission Control deployment

Minimally a DataStax Mission Control deployment consists of only one Control Plane Kubernetes cluster and zero or more Data Plane Kubernetes clusters. Control Plane clusters provide the centralized management of downstream DataStax Enterprise clusters. Any activity related to the managed clusters is initiated and monitored via the Control Plane Kubernetes cluster. This is where the top-level resources reside and DSE cluster-level operations occur.

Hardware considerations

Choose dedicated hardware on which to install the centralized Control Plane. Reiterate the installation process to install Data Planes on each cluster where nodes are to be deployed. In environments involving multiple infrastructure regions, a separate Data Plane installation is required per geographic region or geo-distributed datacenter, with one installation per regional cluster. Data Plane clusters represent the locations where the DSE instances are provisioned and run.

In addition to the two types of DataStax Mission Control deployments, the next section describes the two methods for installation based on the existing or planned infrastructure of an enterprise.

Deployment considerations

DataStax Mission Control provides a platform for the deployment and management of DataStax Enterprise (DSE). To provide a unified interface for automated operations, Kubernetes is leveraged to handle the scheduling of containerized DSE nodes across a fleet of servers deployed across multiple regions and providers. DataStax DataStax Mission Control offers a simple installation process that handles all the details, whether installing onto your existing hardware, newly-provided physical or Virtual Machines (VMs), or Kubernetes clusters. Separate installation steps cover the desired type of deployment.

Kubernetes:

Already have your own Kubernetes clusters? An enterprise with centralized Kubernetes services or one that leverages managed Kubernetes offerings from cloud providers must opt for the Kubernetes-based model. This option requires existing Kubernetes clusters where DataStax Mission Control components are deployed. Most environments utilize a centralized Control Plane with Data Planes housing the individual DSE nodes.

A cluster with an installed Control Plane may also have Data Plane components installed and running.

In environments involving multiple infrastructure regions, a separate Data Plane installation is required per region, with one installation per regional Kubernetes cluster.

See Bring your own Kubernetes.

Install DataStax Mission Control on Physical or Virtual Machines:

Alternatively, if your enterprise does not provide centralized or managed Kubernetes services or the only resources available are bare-metal or virtual servers, leverage the Server-based DataStax Mission Control runtime installation method.

When migrating existing DSE clusters or leveraging physical or virtual servers, use DataStax Mission Control Runtime Installer. DataStax Mission Control Runtime provides a self-container, DataStax supported, Kubernetes environment for the deployment of a platform resources server that can be in the cloud or on-premises, physical or virtual. In this approach you must first run the DataStax Mission Control Runtime Installer to set up the prerequisite services on a cluster (or multiple clusters depending on the scope of your deployment). Then install DataStax Mission Control and its components.

See Server-based DataStax Mission Control Runtime Installer