May 18th, 2021

AzureFunBytes – Demystifying Helm with @DonovanBrown

Jay Gordon
Senior Program Manager

AzureFunBytes is a weekly opportunity to learn more about the fundamentals and foundations that make up Azure. It’s a chance for me to understand more about what people across the Azure organization do and how they do it. Every week we get together at 11 AM Pacific on Microsoft LearnTV and learn more about Azure.

This week I welcome Captain America himself, Donovan Brown to discuss how to be a super hero to your Kubernetes clusters using Helm. We’ll have a discussion on what made Donovan take interest in Helm and how he got started learning to use it. We’ll also dive into Donovan’s new role as Partner Program Manager in the Office of the CTO.

Some of our agenda:

  • We are going the cover the importance of truly learning a tool versus just using it.
  • We will start with an empty folder and build a Helm chart file by file making errors along the way.
  • Then we will show you a full chart that you will now be able to read and understand.

4:31 – Intro to Donovan’s new role at Microsoft
21:01 – Starting from zero
25:53 – A perfectly created chart
31:07 – ConfigMap
38:37 – Functions in Helm
45:00 – An AzureFunBytes exclusive function demo
55:26 – Is it required to know Kubernetes and Docker before getting started with Helm?

What is Helm? Helm is an open-source packaging tool that helps you install and manage the lifecycle of Kubernetes applications. Similar to Linux package managers like APT and Yum, Helm manages Kubernetes charts, which are packages of pre-configured Kubernetes resources.

From the Helm Project website: Helm helps you manage Kubernetes applications — Helm Charts help you define, install, and upgrade even the most complex Kubernetes application.

Charts are easy to create, version, share, and publish — so start using Helm and stop the copy-and-paste.

Helm is a graduated project in the CNCF and is maintained by the Helm community.


Learn about Azure fundamentals with me!

Live stream is available on Twitch, YouTube, and LearnTV at 2 pm EST Thursday. You can also find the recordings here as well:

AzureFunBytes on Twitch
AzureFunBytes on YouTube
Azure DevOps YouTube Channel
Follow AzureFunBytes on Twitter

Useful Docs:

Get $200 in free Azure Credit
Microsoft Learn: Introduction to Azure fundamentals
Microsoft Learn: Develop and deploy applications on Kubernetes
Microsoft Learn: Application and package management using Helm
Quickstart: Deploy an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster using the Azure CLI
Install existing applications with Helm in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Push and pull Helm charts to an Azure container registry
Helm.sh
Video – Demystifying Helm
Video – Semantic Versions
Video: Ten Things You Don’t Know About YAML

Author

Jay Gordon
Senior Program Manager

Jay Gordon is a Senior Program Manager with Azure Cosmos DB focused on reaching developer communities. Jay is located in Brooklyn, NY.

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