Like Peas And Carrots: Argo CD And Crossplane For Infrastructure Management

Using Kubernetes as a control plane for cloud infrastructure management with Crossplane and Argo CD

• Kubernetes is being used as a control plane for cloud infrastructure management
• Crossplane extends Kubernetes to enable provisioning of cloud infrastructure
• Argo CD and Crossplane combined become a powerful infrastructure management dashboard
• Benefits of using Kubernetes over Terraform and CloudFormation include native RBAC and seamless integration with other cloud-native tools
• Acuity uses Argo CD and Crossplane to manage its production AWS infrastructure
• Leverage advanced Argo CD features to get the most out of Crossplane installation
• Best practices recommended by project maintainers Upbound and Acuity

Crossplane is described as the next phase of infrastructure management, using Kubernetes as a control plane. It offers one-to-one matching between resources in Kubernetes and resources in other cloud providers, as well as the ability to create compositions for custom resource definitions. The speaker also mentions the limitations of using Terraform and CloudFormation, and highlights the benefits of using Kubernetes, such as extensible APIs and custom resource definitions. Acuity's use of Argo CD and Crossplane for managing production AWS infrastructure is also mentioned. The speaker encourages the audience to leverage advanced Argo CD features to get the most out of their Crossplane installation, and recommends best practices from project maintainers Upbound and Acuity.

Kubernetes adopters have realized the benefits of declarative APIs and the ability to leverage modern deployment practices such as GitOps for safe and repeatable application delivery. These teams naturally wish to apply these same processes and tools to manage infrastructure deployments. The Crossplane project extends Kubernetes to enable the provisioning of cloud infrastructure. Combined with Argo CD, they become a powerful infrastructure management dashboard. This talk covers the benefits of using Kubernetes as a control plane of your cloud infrastructure over Terraform and CloudFormation, such as native RBAC and seamless integration with other cloud-native tools. See how Akuity uses Argo CD and Crossplane to manage its production AWS infrastructure. Learn to leverage advanced Argo CD features (health checks, resource actions, extensions) to get the most out of your Crossplane installation. Implement best practices recommended directly from the project maintainers Upbound and Akuity.