Hyperconverged with Microk8s and Ceph 1

Part 1 of Many: Building a Microk8s/Ceph Cluster

Sat Jun 10 2023

I have an awesome local MicroK8s/Ceph cluster that I use for many tasks on my local network. Ever since I got it running, I’ve wanted to document the process of creating one and share it. Now is the perfect opportunity because I have three Orange Pi 5s that I want to try out as MicroK8s nodes to see if it’s a viable low-cost alternative to what I’m using now.

Right now, I’m using Compulab Fitlet 2 nodes, and they’ve been great, but they are a little less than $200 each. The shipping from Israel is pricey, and their availability has gotten far worse with the supply chain crisis. The Orange Pi 5 is $140 per node with free shipping from Amazon, though I’m giving up the Dual NICs, and I’ll be switching to an ARM processor from Compulab’s Intel Atom.

The Orange Pi is smaller in general though, and it will be fun to try out 3D-printed cases and probably design my own in the end. I already printed the first one I’ll try using white ASA filament. I picked it because it was the most popular one on printables. It came out pretty good.

I’m going to document my process of building this over a few posts, which gives me a great opportunity to add a series feature to the site so visitors can binge-read them easily.