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Keptn Lifecycle Operator

Keptn's Lifecycle Operator is a Kubernetes operator that automates the deployment and management of the Keptn components in a Kubernetes cluster. It plays a crucial role in managing and orchestrating the various stages of application lifecycle management within Keptn.

The lifecycle operator acts as the backbone of Keptn, overseeing the entire application lifecycle from deployment to testing, evaluation, and observability. It facilitates a streamlined and automated approach to managing the evolution of applications, ensuring smooth transitions between different stages such as development, testing, staging, and production.

graph TD;

G((CRs + manifests)) -- apply --> H[Kubernetes API]
I[Scheduler] <-- schedules Pods --> H
J[Lifecycle controllers] <-- orchestrates --> H

style H fill:#006bb8,stroke:#fff,stroke-width:px,color:#fff
style I fill:#d8e6f4,stroke:#fff,stroke-width:px,color:#006bb8
style J fill:#d8e6f4,stroke:#fff,stroke-width:px,color:#006bb8
style G fill:#fff,stroke:#123,stroke-width:px,color:#006bb8

Key responsibilities of the lifecycle operator include:

  1. Automated Deployment: It automates the deployment of applications using various deployment strategies, such as blue-green deployments or canary releases, ensuring seamless rollouts without disrupting the user experience.

  2. Continuous Testing: The operator integrates testing mechanisms throughout the lifecycle, enabling continuous validation of application changes. It runs automated tests, assesses performance, and ensures the application meets predefined quality gates before moving to the next stage.

  3. Evaluation and Feedback: It collects metrics and evaluates the performance of deployed applications against predefined Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Service Level Indicators (SLIs). It analyzes this data to provide feedback and insights into the application's health and performance.

  4. Observability: It provides observability of the running application out-of-the-box by exposing metrics, traces and logs.

  5. State Management and Versioning: It manages the state and versioning of applications, keeping track of different versions deployed across various environments and ensuring consistency in the deployment process.

Overall, the lifecycle operator in Keptn acts as an intelligent control system, orchestrating the flow of changes and ensuring the reliability, quality, and agility of applications throughout their lifecycle in a cloud-native environment. It empowers development teams to focus on innovation by automating repetitive tasks and providing a standardized, efficient approach to managing complex application lifecycle.

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