Hands-off features releases with Keptn, OpenFeature, and OpenTelemetry - KubeCon 2022, Detroit, US

This repository contains the content and artifacts to perform the demo as shown by the KubeCon talk: Hands-off features releases with Keptn, OpenFeature, and OpenTelemetry.

Abstract: Releasing a new feature into production always comes with an inherent risk of introducing issues. The code may have been thoroughly tested in lower environments, but differences like environment-specific configurations can cause unexpected behaviour. Feature flagging helps reduce this risk by allowing a subset of users to verify a new feature in production before exposing it to all. But how can we achieve hands-off feature release automation?

This session will demonstrate how feature flagging and lifecycle orchestration work together to automate feature releases. Keptn will be the orchestration layer to automate feature validation. It works with OpenFeature to control access to the feature itself, allowing automated tests to verify a feature before it's generally available to users. Keptn will then react on the test results by either progressively enabling the feature for all users or initiating a troubleshooting workflow using OpenTelemetry.

Goal: This talk aims to inspire community consideration of various methods of end-to-end production testing and to demonstrate the power of integrating multiple CNCF projects to solve real-world problems. We will be utilizing several projects, including OpenFeature, Keptn, and OpenTelemetry.

Speakers

Johannes Bräuer - In his role as Product Manager, Johannes drives the roadmap of the Keptn project and supports the Keptn community. He is passionate about approaches for microservice architectures, process automation, and sharing his findings with others. Before joining Dynatrace, he earned a PhD in Business Informatics by conducting research in measuring source code and software design quality. When Johannes is not in front of a computer, you can find him on a mountain bike and hiking trails. (August 2022)

Michael Beemer – Michael is a Product Manager at Dynatrace. He has years of experience in the observability space, working as a Consultant, DevOps Engineer, Software Developer, and Product Manager. Michael enjoys pushing the boundary of what's possible with observability in an effort to unlock hidden potential. He also co-founded OpenFeature, an effort to bring standardization to the feature flagging community. (August 2022)

OpenFeature Introduction

OpenFeature website

Keptn Introduction

Keptn website

Keptn is an open-source control plane for orchestrating continuous delivery (CD) and operational processes of cloud-based applications. It started in January 2019 by the company Dynatrace and then donated to the Cloud-Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in 2020. For more information in general, please visit: keptn.sh

Keptn supports a declarative approach to building scalable automation routines for continuous delivery and operations. Keptn can invoke services from external DevOps tools and consumes the generated events while executing continuous delivery. Currently, the integrated tools support testing, observability, deployment activities, and web-hooks to web applications. A list of those integrations is managed on the ArtifactHub.

To configure the provisioning of services, Keptn relies on declarative artifacts or specifications.

Shipyard: The Shipyard specification declares a multi-stage delivery workflow by defining what needs to be done. A delivery workflow is based on multiple stages, each with different task sequences. A task sequence is a set of actions for a specific delivery or operational process. Following this declarative approach, there is no need to write imperative pipeline code.
Keptn Events: Keptn will send out events for tool integrations. All Keptn events conform to the CloudEvents spec in version 1.0. The CloudEvents specification is a vendor-neutral specification for defining event data format.
SLI and SLO: (Out of scope for this demo) A service-level indicator (SLI) is a carefully defined quantitative measure of some aspect of the level of service that is provided. A service-level objective (SLO) is a target value or range of values for a service level that an SLI measures. Together, the SLI/SLO specifications declare a quality gate for a given service. This quality gate can be leveraged in the delivery or operational process to measure the defined quality criteria.
Remediation: (Out of scope for this demo) The Remediation defines remediation actions to execute in response to a problem. Keptn interprets this configuration to trigger the proper remediation actions.

In this demo, Keptn will be used to manage the lifecycle of the Fibonacci service. Therefore, a multi-stage delivery process is set up to have a staged rollout from a staging to a production environment. The delivery process in production contains the tasks of artifact deployment, test, config change, and release. Besides, Keptn will inform about failed tests or successfully released artifacts in production.

Feature flagging and lifecycle orchestration together

ToDo: Explanation of how OpenFeature and Keptn work together, including an architectural diagram and explanation of the use case - Link to the slide deck / PDF.

Step-by-step guide

This section will provide a step-by-step guide to:

Set up Keptn and its integration points
Create a Keptn project and service
Install Jaeger for trace observability
Run the demo

Keptn setup

Initial Keptn setup

This demo builds on Keptn v0.18.1
Install Keptn on your Kubernetes cluster using Helm. The installation guide is provided here.

Install two execution services on your Kubernetes cluster; one for deploying, and one for testing purposes:

helm-serivce: This service will act on the Keptn events sh.keptn.event.deployment.triggered and sh.keptn.event.release.triggered to deploy a Helm Chart as part of a software delivery.

helm upgrade helm-service https://github.com/keptn/keptn/releases/download/0.18.1/helm-service-0.18.1.tgz -n keptn --create-namespace --wait

job-executor-service: This service will act on the Keptn event sh.keptn.event.test.triggered to run a K6 test against the newly deployed version.

JES_VERSION=0.2.4

KEPTN_API_PROTOCOL=http
KEPTN_API_HOST=<YOUR_KEPTN_HOST_NAME>
KEPTN_API_TOKEN=<YOUR_KEPTN_API_TOKEN>

TASK_SUBSCRIPTION=sh.keptn.event.test.triggered

NAMESPACE=keptn-jes

helm upgrade --install --create-namespace -n ${NAMESPACE} job-executor-service \
    https://github.com/keptn-contrib/job-executor-service/releases/download/${JES_VERSION}/job-executor-service-${JES_VERSION}.tgz \
    --set remoteControlPlane.topicSubscription=${TASK_SUBSCRIPTION} \
    --set remoteControlPlane.api.protocol=${KEPTN_API_PROTOCOL} \
    --set remoteControlPlane.api.hostname=${KEPTN_API_HOST} \
    --set remoteControlPlane.api.token=${KEPTN_API_TOKEN}

Install Keptn CLI locally to communicate with your Keptn installation. The installation guide is provided here
To authenticate the Keptn CLI against Keptn,
- Open the Keptn bridge in a browser: https://<your-keptn-host-name>/bridge and log in with user keptn and password ****
- After logging in, open the user profile in the top right corner and copy the keptn auth command.
- Paste the command in your shell to authenticate the Keptn CLI:
```
keptn auth --endpoint=https://<your-keptn-host-name>/api --api-token=****
Starting to authenticate
Successfully authenticated against https://<your-keptn-host-name>/api
Bridge URL: https://<your-keptn-host-name>/bridge
Using a file-based storage for the key because the password-store seems to be not set up.
```
- 🎉 Congrates, Keptn is working and you're ready to move on creating a project and service.

Configure Slack integration

Create Slack webhook

Create Slack webhook: In Slack, please follow the guidelines to enable Incomming Webhooks.
Store Slack webhook as a Keptn secret: To secure the Slack hook, a Keptn secret must be created. To do this, go to the Keptn project Settings > Secrets and click the Add Secret button. On that form, fill the following values:
- Name: Name such as slack-secret
- Scope: keptn-webhook-service
- Key-value pairs: Click the new key-value pair button and add these values:
  - Key = Name such as HOOK
  - Value = The Slack webhook from the previous step starting after services/. (e.g, https://hooks.slack.com/services/T00000000/B00000000/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX)

Notify on failure

To link to: http://localhost:8080/search?lookback=1h&service=fibonacci-production&tags=%7B%22feature_flag.flag_key%22%3A%22use-remote-fib-service%22%7D

In Keptn, navigate to Settings and select the webhook-service
Click the Add subscription button, to create a new event subscription on the currently selected project
In this form, fill out the following fields:
- Task: notify
- Task suffix: triggered

In the Webhook configuration form section, fill out the following:

Request Method: POST
URL: https://hooks.slack.com/services/{{.secret.slack-webhook.HOOK}}
Payload:

{
  "blocks": [
    {
      "type": "section",
      "text": {
        "type": "mrkdwn",
        "text": ":x: Delivery of *{{.data.service}}* failed in *{{.data.stage}}*"
      },
      "accessory": {
        "type": "button",
        "text": {
          "type": "plain_text",
          "text": "See Traces in Jaeger",
          "emoji": true
        },
        "value": "click_me_123",
        "url": "http://jaeger-query.jaeger.<YOUR-INGRESS-GW>.nip.io/search",
        "action_id": "button-action"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Finally, click Create subscription to save and enable the webhook for your Slack integration.

Notify on successful release

In Keptn, navigate to Settings and select the webhook-service
Click the Add subscription button to create a new event subscription on the currently selected project
In this form, fill out the following fields:
- Task: release
- Task suffix: finished
Set filter to: Stage: production
In the Webhook configuration form section fill out the following:
- Request Method: POST
- URL: https://hooks.slack.com/services/{{.secret.slack-webhook.token}}
- Payload:
```
{
  "text": ":white_check_mark: Delivery of *{{.data.service}}* in *{{.data.stage}}* finished with the new feature enabled"
}
```
- Finally, click Create subscription to save and enable the webhook for your Slack integration.

Configure GitHub integration

Get GitHub access token

Get GitHub Access Token: A GitHub personal access token (PAT) is required to pass within the Keptn webhook authorization header for the GitHub API to authenticate the request. Follow these instructions in the GitHub docs to create your token and be sure that you have given the token access to the repo scope.
Store GitHub token as a Keptn secret: To secure the GitHub Access Token, a Keptn secret must be created. To do this, go to the Keptn project Settings > Secrets and click the Add Secret button. On that form, fill the following values:
- Name: Name such as github-secret
- Scope: keptn-webhook-service
- Key-value pairs: Click the new key-value pair button and add these values:
  - Key = Name such as GITHUBTOKEN
  - Value = The GitHub Access Token from the step from the previous section

Create workflow in your GitHub repository

In the upstream repository of your Keptn project, you need to create two GitHub actions for two tasks:

Updating a feature flag in a configmap to enable a feature for all users. The Keptn event: sh.keptn.event.enable-feature.triggered will trigger this action.
Notifying Keptn about the configuration change. This action will send the event sh.keptn.event.enable-feature.finished to Keptn.

In the upstream repository on the master branch, create the folder: ./github/workflows
Add the two files enable-feature.yaml and notify-keptn.yaml to this folder and commit your changes.

Configure webhook to enable the feature

In Keptn, navigate to Settings and select the webhook-service
Click the Add subscription button to create a new event subscription on the currently selected project
In this form, fill out the following fields:
- Task: enable-feature
- Task suffix: triggered

In the Webhook configuration form section, fill out the following:

Request Method: POST
URL: https://api.github.com/repos/{GIT_ORG}/{GIT_REPO}/dispatches
Custom header: Authorization token {{.secret.github-secret.GITHUBTOKEN}}
Payload:

{
    "event_type": "enable-feature",
    "client_payload": {
        "type": "{{.type}}",
        "project": "{{.data.project}}",
        "service": "{{.data.service}}",
        "stage": "{{.data.stage}}",
        "shkeptncontext": "{{.shkeptncontext}}",
        "id": "{{.id}}",
        "default_variant": "on",
        "flag_key": "use-remote-fib-service"
    }
}

Finally, click Create subscription to save and enable the webhook for your Slack integration.

Keptn project and service setup

Create Keptn project

To create a Keptn project, first create an empty Git repository and have your Git user name as well as a personal access token by hand. (see: Create a project for more details)

After creating a Git repository, run the following command:

keptn create project fibonacci --shipyard=./shipyard.yaml --git-user=*** --git-token=*** --git-remote-url=***

✨ Awesome, continue with creating a service.

Create Keptn service and upload artifacts

Run the following command to create a service in your Keptn project:

keptn create service fibonacci --project=fibonacci

keptn create service fib3r --project=fibonacci

To upload its Helm Chart for deployment, execute:

cd ./fibonacci/helm
tar -czvf fibonacci.tgz fibonacci
keptn add-resource --project=fibonacci --service=fibonacci --all-stages --resource=fibonacci.tgz --resourceUri=helm/fibonacci.tgz
cd ../..

cd ./fib3r/helm
tar -czvf fib3r.tgz fib3r
keptn add-resource --project=fibonacci --service=fib3r --all-stages --resource=fib3r.tgz --resourceUri=helm/fib3r.tgz
cd ../..

To upload its test and to configure the job executor service, execute:

cd ./fib3r/k6
keptn add-resource --project=fibonacci --service=fib3r --all-stages --resource=calculate.js --resourceUri=k6/calculate.js

keptn add-resource --project=fibonacci --service=fib3r --stage=staging --resource=jobconfig_staging.yaml --resourceUri=job/config.yaml
keptn add-resource --project=fibonacci --service=fib3r --stage=production --resource=jobconfig_production.yaml --resourceUri=job/config.yaml
cd ../..

👍 Great, now you're ready to trigger the first deployment:

keptn trigger delivery --sequence=deployment --project=fibonacci --service=fibonacci --image=ghcr.io/open-feature/playground-fib-service:v0.2.0

keptn trigger delivery --sequence=delivery --project=fibonacci --service=fib3r --image=ghcr.io/open-feature/playground-app:v0.2.0

Install and access Jaeger

Install Jaeger using its Helm Chart: https://jaegertracing.github.io/helm-charts/

helm repo add jaegertracing https://jaegertracing.github.io/helm-charts
helm upgrade -i jaeger jaegertracing/jaeger -n jaeger --create-namespace --set collector.service.otlp.http.port=4318,collector.service.otlp.grpc.port=4317

Access Jaeger UI using:

export POD_NAME=$(kubectl get pods --namespace jaeger -l "app.kubernetes.io/instance=jaeger,app.kubernetes.io/component=query" -o jsonpath="{.items[0].metadata.name}")
echo http://127.0.0.1:8080/
kubectl port-forward --namespace jaeger $POD_NAME 8080:16686

Demo flow

Prerequisite

On the production branch in your upstream repository, set FIB_SERVICE_PASS to a value other than my-fib3r-password. You will find this setting in: /fib3r/helm/fib3r/templates/deployment.yaml
Reseting the feature flag:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: feature-flags
data:
  config.json: |-
    {
      "flags": {
        "new-welcome-message": {
          "state": "ENABLED",
          "variants": {
            "on": true,
            "off": false
          },
          "defaultVariant": "on"
        },
        "hex-color": {
          "returnType": "string",
          "variants": {
            "red": "CC0000",
            "green": "00CC00",
            "blue": "0000CC",
            "yellow": "yellow"
          },
          "defaultVariant": "red",
          "state": "ENABLED"
        },
        "use-remote-fib-service": {
          "state": "ENABLED",
          "variants": {
            "on": true,
            "off": false
          },
          "defaultVariant": "off",
          "targeting": {
            "if": [
              {
                "in": [
                  "k6",
                  {
                    "var": "userAgent"
                  }
                ]
              },
              "on",
              null
            ]
          }
        },
        "fib-algo": {
          "returnType": "string",
          "variants": {
            "recursive": "recursive",
            "memo": "memo",
            "loop": "loop",
            "binet": "binet"
          },
          "defaultVariant": "recursive",
          "state": "ENABLED",
          "targeting": {
            "if": [
              {
                "in": [
                  "@faas.com",
                  {
                    "var": [
                      "email"
                    ]
                  }
                ]
              },
              "binet",
              null
            ]
          }
        }
      }
    }

Starting a progressive delivery of the fib3r app (main service)

keptn trigger delivery --sequence=delivery --project=fibonacci --service=fib3r --image=ghcr.io/open-feature/playground-app:v0.2.0

In Keptn, the delivery of the new version in staging was successful and shows a green state:

See delivery in staging
After the delivery in staging, Keptn starts a progressive delivery in production. This process will:
- Update the version of the fib3r app
- Deploy the new version using Helm
- Start an end-to-end test using K6
However, the end-to-end tests will fail.
- Consequently, Keptn sends out a Slack message with a link to Jaeger, helping the user to troubleshoot the problem.
In Jaeger, it will be evident that the authentication was not working due to the wrong password.
To continue the demo, the variable FIB3R_PASS has to be set to my-fib3r-password.

Re-running the delivery

keptn trigger delivery --sequence=delivery --project=fibonacci --service=fib3r --image=ghcr.io/open-feature/playground-app:v0.2.0 --stage=production

Like in the first run, the delivery in staging will be successful and shows a green state.
After the delivery in staging, Keptn starts a progressive delivery in production. This process will:
- Update the version of the fib3r app
- Deploy the new version using Helm
- Start an end-to-end test using K6
This time, the end-to-end test will pass.
- Consequently, Keptn will trigger a config change in production to enable the new feature for all users.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 41 Commits
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
fib3r		fib3r
fibonacci/helm/fibonacci		fibonacci/helm/fibonacci
img		img
jaeger		jaeger
keptn		keptn
scripts		scripts
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md

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Hands-off features releases with Keptn, OpenFeature, and OpenTelemetry - KubeCon 2022, Detroit, US

Speakers

OpenFeature Introduction

Keptn Introduction

Feature flagging and lifecycle orchestration together

Step-by-step guide

Keptn setup

Initial Keptn setup

Configure Slack integration

Create Slack webhook

Notify on failure

Notify on successful release

Configure GitHub integration

Get GitHub access token

Create workflow in your GitHub repository

Configure webhook to enable the feature

Keptn project and service setup

Create Keptn project

Create Keptn service and upload artifacts

Install and access Jaeger

Demo flow

Prerequisite

Starting a progressive delivery of the fib3r app (main service)

Re-running the delivery

Summary

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johannes-b/kubecon22

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Hands-off features releases with Keptn, OpenFeature, and OpenTelemetry - KubeCon 2022, Detroit, US

Speakers

OpenFeature Introduction

Keptn Introduction

Feature flagging and lifecycle orchestration together

Step-by-step guide

Keptn setup

Initial Keptn setup

Configure Slack integration

Create Slack webhook

Notify on failure

Notify on successful release

Configure GitHub integration

Get GitHub access token

Create workflow in your GitHub repository

Configure webhook to enable the feature

Keptn project and service setup

Create Keptn project

Create Keptn service and upload artifacts

Install and access Jaeger

Demo flow

Prerequisite

Starting a progressive delivery of the fib3r app (main service)

Re-running the delivery

Summary

About

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