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Rancher Deployment Strategy

There are two recommended deployment strategies for a Rancher instance that manages downstream Kubernetes clusters. Each one has its own pros and cons. Read more about which one would fit best for your use case.

Hub & Spoke Strategy​

In this deployment scenario, there is a single Rancher instance managing Kubernetes clusters across the globe. The Rancher instance would be run on a high-availability Kubernetes cluster, and there would be impact due to latencies.

Pros​

  • Single control plane interface to view/see all regions and environments.
  • Kubernetes does not require Rancher to operate and can tolerate losing connectivity to the Rancher instance.

Cons​

  • Subject to network latencies.
  • If Rancher goes down, global provisioning of new services is unavailable until it is restored. However, each Kubernetes cluster can continue to be managed individually.

Regional Strategy​

In the regional deployment model a Rancher instance is deployed in close proximity to the downstream Kubernetes clusters.

Pros​

  • Rancher functionality in regions stay operational if a Rancher instance in another region goes down.
  • Network latency between Rancher and downstream clusters is greatly reduced, improving the performance of functionality in Rancher.
  • Upgrades of Rancher can be done independently per region.

Cons​

  • Overhead of managing multiple Rancher installations.
  • Visibility into Kubernetes clusters in different regions requires multiple interfaces/panes of glass.
  • Deploying multi-cluster apps in Rancher requires repeating the process for each Rancher server.