A dashboard for all clusters: Canonical bundles MicroCloud management

Canonical has released the beta version of the MicroCloud Cluster Manager. The open-source tool offers a unified interface for monitoring and managing multiple MicroCloud clusters across different locations.

MicroCloud is Canonical's lightweight cloud platform, which allows for the setup of fault-tolerant server clusters even in distributed locations, typically consisting of 3 to about 50 nodes. However, as the number of clusters grows, it becomes increasingly difficult for administrators to keep track of the status, location, and configuration of individual environments. This is precisely where the new cluster manager is intended to help.

The tool serves as a central dashboard for all connected MicroCloud installations. Administrators can register clusters through it and view their health status, resource utilization, and configuration at a glance. According to Canonical, setup is possible in just a few steps: deploy cluster, connect to manager, use dashboard.

The Cluster Manager is designed to be expandable with the Canonical Observability Stack – a toolbox for monitoring and alerting built on established open-source components. In the current beta version, a Grafana dashboard for the LXD virtualization layer is already integrated and usable without additional configuration. Grafana is an open-source platform for visualizing metrics and system data. Monitoring of MicroCeph (distributed storage) and MicroOVN (virtual network) is planned for future versions.

Built entirely on open source

Under the hood, the MicroCloud Cluster Manager relies on Juju as the orchestration tool, PostgreSQL as the database, and the Traefik Ingress Operator for managing incoming network connections. Juju is Canonical's model-driven tool that automates the deployment and operation of applications. According to Canonical, typical operational tasks such as updates, scaling, and fault tolerance are covered from the outset.

Canonical positions the Cluster Manager merely as the first building block of a more comprehensive management environment for MicroCloud environments, as indicated in the associated blog post. In the future, the tool is to be expanded into a complete operating console for cluster insights, automation, and lifecycle management. The beta version is available immediately for testing via the official documentation.

(fo)