Every innovation in the world is made to make our lives easier, similarly, when Kubernetes came into the picture, deploying an application as a microservice infrastructure became just a task of a few "kubectls". Now, that our app is deployed, we need to manage our YAML files related to the deployment. This is where Helm comes into the picture.
Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes that simplifies the installation and management of applications on a Kubernetes cluster. It allows you to define and manage Kubernetes applications as packages, called charts. Helm charts contain files describing the Kubernetes resources needed to run the application and any associated configuration values.
Use cases of Helm
In a nutshell, using Helm you can easily install, upgrade, or roll back Kubernetes applications on a cluster with minimum effort.
Here are some features of Helm:
Charts: Charts are the packages that contain all the necessary files required to deploy your application. Each chart contains a YAML file that describes the resources required to run the application.
Repositories: Helm repositories are used to store and share charts with other users. You can add, remove or update a chart in a repository as per requirement.
Dependencies: Helm allows you to define dependencies between charts, which makes it easy to manage complex applications.
Rollbacks: If there is an issue with an upgrade or deployment, Helm allows you to roll back to a previous version of the application.
Values: Helm allows you to define different values for each deployment, eliminating the need to edit the YAML files every time.
Conclusion
Helm makes it easy to deploy and manage Kubernetes applications, simplifies deployments, provides version control, and it supports continuous delivery. It is a powerful tool for streamlining development and deployment workflows in Kubernetes environments.
Knowledge and Notes