Getting Started with GitOps using Weave GitOps

Introduction

In our recent blogs, we wrote about what GitOps is all about, the pull vs. push deployments, progressive delivery, and why businesses are adopting the GitOps model.

In this piece, we will zoom into how you can get started on your GitOps journey with Weave GitOps.

Principles of GitOps

Coined by Weaveworks in 2017, GitOps is an operational paradigm for Kubernetes and cloud-native technologies. DevOps best practices - such as version control, CI/CD tooling, collaboration, and compliance - are also used in GitOps and applied to infrastructure automation. 

GitOps revolves around four core principles as per the OpenGitOps standards:

• The entire system is described declaratively in Git 
• The desired system state is stored in a way that enforces immutability and version history.  
• Approved changes are automatically applied to the system
• Software agents continuously reconcile any observed differences between actual system state and the desired state.  

About Weave GitOps

Weave GitOps is a continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes based on Flux, a powerful GItOps engine, and a CNCF project (in progress to graduation). Weave GitOps provides insights into your application deployment and simplifies the scaling and the adoption of GitOps across teams.

Weave GitOps is an open-source project sponsored by Weaveworks, the GitOps company and Flux’s original creators. Weave GitOps is available in two different tiers: 

• Weave GitOps Core is a free and open-source continuous delivery tool to enable deployments of applications into any Kubernetes cluster. With this tool, the deployment of any code is automated and significantly simplified. Developers can get started with a two-command line process without needing to manually configure the cluster settings. Additionally, you can also pre-configure the monitoring and observability tools for the clusters. 

• Weave GitOps Enterprise  the continuous operations and control of Kubernetes at any scale that platforms teams need to manage. It includes a vast array of product features such as application delivery UI, component profiles, platform as code, multi-cluster management, trusted application delivery, cluster fleet management, and many more. 

Weave GitOps: A Constant Reconciliation Engine

Weave GitOps automates the process which Weaveworks describes as “ a reconciliation loop between Git and Kubernetes.” It constantly reconciles the desired state stored in Git with the actual state running in Kubernetes. When the developer merges a change into the main branch, those changes are immediately applied to Kubernetes. 

What you Need to Get Started

We assume that you’re now familiar with the GitOps concepts and the cloud-native ecosystem (Kubernetes, containers, and all the works). Before you get started, you will need to have all of the below tools set up. 

• GitHub account
• Git command line utility. Linux distributions include it. If you’re a Mac user, you can use Homebrew. For Windows, you can download it from the Git website. 
• Kubernetes cluster - we use Kind. Kind lets you run Kubernetes on your local computer (you must have Docker installed and configured to use it)
• kubectl installed. A Kubernetes command-line tool allowing you to run commands against Kubernetes clusters 
• Weave GitOps command line utility, which can be found here.

Enable Weave GitOps with 2 Simple Commands

Two commands are all you need to enable GitOps in your cluster and run your applications on it.

1- Enable GitOps on your cluster.

2- Add your application.

And that’s it! Now the workloads are up and running in your cluster. 

To read the full documentation on getting started, check out Weaveworks’ step by step guide here. Or you can watch this YouTube video

Additional Resources

To learn more about GitOps, check out these resources:

• GitOps for absolute beginners - eBook from Weaveworks
• Guide to GitOps - from Weaveworks
• OpenGitOps - CNCF Sandbox project aiming to define a vendor-neutral, principle-led meaning of GitOps.
• gitops.tech - supported by Innoq

To enable GitOps in enterprise Kubernetes at scale, then GitOps Enterprise is the right product for you. Request a Demo now.