How to Enable High Availability for Vultr Kubernetes Engine Cluster

Updated on September 23, 2024

High availability is a key feature of Vultr Kubernetes Engine (VKE) cluster that ensures your cluster remains resilient and operational, even in the event of unexpected failures. By enabling high availability, your VKE cluster is distributed across multiple nodes and regions, reducing the risk of downtime and ensuring continuous availability of your applications. This feature integrates seamlessly with Vultr’s global cloud infrastructure, providing reliable performance and redundancy.

Follow this guide to enable High Availability for your Vultr Kubernetes Engine cluster using the Vultr Customer Portal, API, or CLI.

Vultr Customer Portal
Vultr API
Vultr CLI

Navigate to Products and click Kubernetes.
Click Add Cluster.
Enter a Cluster Name.
Select the target version from the Kubernetes Version drop-down.
Select Enable High Availability to configure multiple nodes for your cluster.
Choose the Node Pool Type.
Click the Node Pool Plan drop-down and select the desired node plan.
Provide a Label, and select the Number of Nodes.
Choose a Vultr Location for your cluster.
Click Deploy Now to launch your cluster.

Send a GET request to the List Regions endpoint and note your target Vultr region ID.

                            console
                            
                        
$ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/regions" \
    -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"

Send a GET request to the List available plans in region endpoint to view all available instance plans in your chosen region and note the target node pool plan.
console
```
$ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/regions/{region-id}/availability" \
    -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"
```

Send a GET request to the Get Kubernetes Versions endpoint and note your target Kubernetes version to use.

                            console
                            
                        
$ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/kubernetes/versions" \
    -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"

Send a POST request to the Create Kubernetes Cluster endpoint to create a VKE cluster with high availability. Post-creation, note the cluster's ID.

                            console
                            
                        
$ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/kubernetes/clusters" \
    -X POST \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data '{
        "label": "{cluster-name}",
        "region": "{region-id}",
        "version": "{kubernetes-version}",
        "ha_controlplanes": true,
        "node_pools": [
            {
                "node_quantity": {number-of-nodes},
                "label": "{node-label}",
                "plan": "{node-plan}"
            }
        ]
    }'

Send a GET request to the Get Kubernetes Cluster endpoint to get the details of the target VKE cluster.

                            console
                            
                        
$ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/kubernetes/clusters/{cluster-id}" \
    -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"

List all Vultr regions and note your target region ID.
console
```
$ vultr-cli regions list
```
List all available instance plans in your target region and note the target node pool plan.
console
```
$ vultr-cli regions availability <region-id>
```
List all available Kubernetes versions and note your target version to use.
console
```
$ vultr-cli kubernetes versions
```

Create a VKE cluster with --high-avail flag and note the target cluster's ID.

                            console
                            
$ vultr-cli kubernetes create --label "<cluster-name>" --region "<region-id>" --version "<kubernetes-version>" --high-avail true --node-pools "quantity:<number-of-nodes>,plan:<node-plan>,label:<node-label>"