Asking Phind for help, Azure scalesets

[matttrach]

I recently got help from Phind, an AI that can set context based on the output of search engines.
I have upgraded my account to include the latest LLM models, this one uses Claude Opus:

https://www.phind.com/agent?cache=cluli9kl4000cl508dn1gk974

I was attempting to answer the question: "How do we get rancher2_cluster (terraform provider) to deploy Azure scalesets?"
A user advocate asked privately in company slack.

[matttrach]

Here is the answer given by the AI, I have not validated the solution, but it may give hints which lead to solutions:

Let me do a few searches to find the most relevant information to help answer your question about Azure scalesets, how to create them with and without Rancher, and how to potentially generate them using the Rancher Terraform provider.

azure scaleset overview

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The search results provide a good overview of what an Azure virtual machine scale set (VMSS) is. Key points:

• A VMSS allows you to deploy and manage a set of identical, auto-scaling VMs.
• The number of VM instances can automatically increase or decrease in response to demand or a defined schedule.
• Scalesets are well suited for stateless applications that need to scale out, like web servers.
• VMs in a scaleset can be deployed across multiple update domains and fault domains to maximize availability.

This gives a solid foundation for understanding scalesets conceptually. To fully answer the question, I still need details on how to create scalesets with and without Rancher, and how the Rancher Terraform provider might support them.
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create azure scaleset without rancher

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The search results explain the key steps to create an Azure virtual machine scale set without using Rancher:

1. Create a resource group to contain the VMSS resources
2. Create a virtual network and subnet
3. Create a public IP address and load balancer for the VMSS
4. Create the VMSS, specifying the VM size, capacity, OS image, authentication settings, etc.

This can be done through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, ARM templates, or infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform.

The results mention that additional customization can be done, like using custom VM images, attaching data disks, running configuration scripts, setting up monitoring, etc.

I now have a good understanding of the manual process to create a VMSS outside of Rancher. The next step is to look into Rancher-specific methods.
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create azure scaleset using rancher

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The search results provide guidance on creating Azure scalesets through Rancher:

1. In Rancher, go to the Cluster Management view and click "Create Cloud Credentials" to add your Azure credentials
2. Still in Cluster Management, click "Create Cluster" and choose "Azure" as the infrastructure provider
3. Fill out the cluster configuration, including the cluster name, Kubernetes version, region, instance type for the VMs, etc.
4. In the "Node Pools" section, you can define one or more scalesets by specifying the VM size, disk size, auto-scaling parameters, etc.
5. Click "Create" to have Rancher provision the cluster and scalesets in your Azure account

The key points are that Rancher abstracts a lot of the underlying Azure configuration, allows defining scalesets as "node pools" in the cluster config, and takes care of the provisioning.

I also found some information suggesting that Rancher supports upgrading scalesets, auto-scaling based on cluster metrics, and other lifecycle management capabilities.

The final piece I'm missing is if/how the Rancher Terraform provider exposes these scaleset capabilities. I'll do one more targeted search on that.
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rancher2 terraform provider azure node pool

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The search results confirm that the rancher2 Terraform provider supports configuring Azure node pools, which are scalesets under the hood.

The key resource is rancher2_node_pool, which has an azure_config block to specify the Azure-specific settings. The example config shows specifying the VM size, disk size, auto-scaling parameters, etc.

So in a Terraform config, you would first define a rancher2_cloud_credential with your Azure creds, then a rancher2_cluster with azure as the provider, and finally one or more rancher2_node_pool resources attached to that cluster.

I also double checked the rancher2 provider documentation on GitHub, and it aligns with these findings.

I believe I now have enough information from these searches to provide a thorough answer to the original question.
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To summarize what I found about Azure scalesets and how to use them with Rancher and the Rancher Terraform provider:

An Azure virtual machine scale set (VMSS) allows you to deploy and manage a set of identical, auto-scaling VMs. The number of VM instances can automatically increase or decrease in response to demand or a defined schedule. Scalesets are well suited for stateless applications that need to scale out, like web servers.

To create a VMSS directly in Azure without Rancher, you would:

1. Create an Azure resource group to contain the VMSS resources
2. Create a virtual network and subnet
3. Create a public IP and load balancer for the VMSS
4. Create the VMSS itself, specifying the VM size, capacity, OS image, authentication settings, etc.

This can be done through the Azure portal, CLI, ARM templates, or Terraform.

In Rancher, Azure scalesets are surfaced as "node pools" when creating an RKE cluster. The high-level steps are:

1. Add your Azure cloud credentials in Rancher
2. Create a new RKE cluster, choosing Azure as the infrastructure provider
3. Define one or more node pools, specifying the VM size, disk size, auto-scaling parameters, etc.
4. Rancher will provision the cluster and node pool scalesets in your Azure account

Some benefits of the Rancher approach are that it abstracts some of the underlying Azure config, integrates with Rancher's cluster lifecycle management, and allows auto-scaling based on Kubernetes metrics.

Finally, for the Rancher Terraform provider, the key resource is rancher2_node_pool. You define a node pool linked to a rancher2_cluster resource, and use the azure_config block to configure the scaleset details.

Here's a simplified example:

# Azure cloud credential 
resource "rancher2_cloud_credential" "azure" {
  name = "azure-cred"
  azure_credential_config {
    client_id = var.azure_client_id
    client_secret = var.azure_client_secret
    subscription_id = var.azure_subscription_id
  }
}

# RKE cluster in Azure
resource "rancher2_cluster" "azure-cluster" {
  name = "azure-cluster"
  cloud_credential_id = rancher2_cloud_credential.azure.id
  azure_config {
    resource_group = "my-resource-group"
    network = "my-vnet"
    subnet = "my-subnet"
  }
}

# Node pool scaleset
resource "rancher2_node_pool" "azure-pool" {
  cluster_id = rancher2_cluster.azure-cluster.id
  name = "azure-pool"
  azure_config {
    vm_size = "Standard_D2_v2"
    os_disk_size = 50
    enable_auto_scaling = true
    min_count = 1
    max_count = 10
  }
}

So in summary, Azure scalesets are a powerful way to deploy auto-scaling VMs, Rancher makes it easier to use them for Kubernetes clusters, and the Rancher Terraform provider allows defining them as code.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

[matttrach]

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