Kubernetes: Identify Configuration Issues

This scenario shows how an application developer with no Kubernetes training can identify the root cause a subtle configuration issue that is causing a microservice component failure.

Scenario Overview

The online-boutique application has it's own dedicated RunWhen Workspace (named Online Boutique). It has a single public URL, is running in a Google GKE cluster, and is comprised of many microservices.

• Application URL: https://online-boutique.sandbox.runwhen.com

If you click on the link above, you will immediately see 500 errors, but it might not be obvious why.

This tutorial will walk you through:

• Exploring the list of Open Issues for the workspace

• Chatting with an AI Assistant about the issue details and summary

  • Reviewing the task results, summaries, and suggested next steps

• Identifying the root cause of the application failure

Getting Started in the RunWhen Platform

Upon logging into the platform, you will be shown a list of Workspaces that are accessible to you. If this is your first time, you will see some Public workspaces - these are created for demonstration and exploration purposes.

Selecting a Workspace

For this scenario, please select the following workspace:

• Online Boutique

Exploring Open Issues

Upon clicking the workspace, you will be dropped into the Home page, displaying a Reliability To-Do List. This page shows list of open issues for the workspace, sorted by time, displaying age of the latest issue along with number of times that the issue was noticed.

• Selecting an open issue, such as Deployment Cartservice Has No Ready Replicas, will open up the issue inside of Workspace Chat

Using Workspace Chat to Investigate an Issue

Since the main issue right now is that the application is failing and users are experiencing the error "could not retrieve cart", ask Eager Edgar about the specific issue inside of Workspace Chat.

• Quite often, the AI Assistant will display a list of service components and their issues to focus on

• In the above list, we can see that there is an open issue on the Cartservice Deployment Health

• Select an open issue (by clicking it)

  • Eager Edgar will display the collected details about the Issue (it’s logs, related tasks, and additional tasks that could be run for further investigation)

• Additionally, the AI Assistant will provide a summary of the issue, including the suspected root cause

• The summary above clearly outlines the configuration issue, which can be forwarded to an engineer for remediation

Remediation tasks will show up in the issue details if they exist. This environment does not include remediation tasks at this time.

Final Chat Review