Getting Started with vCluster: Build Your IDP with Backstage, Crossplane, and ArgoCD - Part 1/2

Spinning up Kubernetes clusters for each application team per environment gets expensive very fast! In this video, I'll introduce you to vClusters from Loft Labs and show you how to build an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) using vClusters as vending machines for easy and quick Kubernetes cluster creation.

🚀 What You'll Learn:

✅ What is a vCluster and how it helps reduce Kubernetes costs.
✅ How to build an IDP using Backstage, Crossplane, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, AWS, and vCluster.
✅ The step-by-step process of setting up a multitenant cluster environment.

🔧 Tools Covered:

✅ Backstage: Our frontend for templates and workflows.
✅ Crossplane: Infrastructure as code tool for building our EKS cluster.
✅ GitHub Actions: For automating our workflows.
✅ ArgoCD: For continuous delivery and feedback.
✅ vCluster: To create lightweight, isolated Kubernetes clusters within a host cluster.
✅ Akeyless: For secure secrets management and kubeconfig delivery.

By the end of this video, you can set up your own Internal Developer Platform with automated Kubernetes cluster creation, perfect for development, QA, and testing environments.

▬▬▬▬▬▬ T I M E S T A M P S ⏰ ▬▬▬▬▬▬
00:00 Introduction
00:38 What is vCluster?
02:14 What We'll Build
05:36 Setting up our Environment
14:31 Secrets Needed
17:25 Setup Crossplane
19:49 Set up Backstage
25:32 Backstage Template to Create the EKS Cluster
28:28 Create the EKS Cluster with Backstage
35:44 Register vCluster Template in ArgoCD
36:52 Add the Target Domain
38:00 Update vCluster Template in Backstage
40:21 Register the vCluster Template in Backstage
41:13 A Developer Requesting a vCluster Demo
45:06 Wrap-Up

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Useful Links 🛠 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Playgrounds 🎠 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Courses 🎓 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
🎟️ Get 15% off of my Terraform 101 Course with this coupon ► YOUTUBE15TF101
🎟️ Get 15% off of my Vault 101 Course with this coupon ► YOUTUBE15VAULT101

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Community 🌎 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Connect 👋 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

[shabbirsaifee]

Ah finally a great video on vclusters! Thanks Sam!

[User-mpz]

Hi, thank you for this great video. I really appreciate it, as I'm researching and creating a proof of concept for the IDP for my client.

[flyingwings-learningisfun]

Can you show us how to create the compositions XRD etc from scratch and what documentaion is used while creating that

[vaishnokrithika]

Thanks for the video Sam. Any specific reason using old version providers from upbound marketplace? Appreciate your response.

[amjads]

Thank you for great explanation. Is it even used in production now a days by any big clients v

[Ztall]

is it possible to explain how to use this repo with k3d(local) instead of amazon or google ? thanks.