Managing Kyma Runtimes

SAP BTP, Kyma runtime is managed in the Kyma dashboard, a web-based UI for managing resources within Kyma or any Kubernetes cluster. It uses Busola (https://github.com/kyma-project/busola) as central administration dashboard, which provides a graphical overview of your cluster and deployments.

The highest level displayed in the Kyma dashboard is a cluster. Here you can manage namespaces, create configurations for roles and resources, or access Kyma add-ons.

The Kyma dashboard can be used standalone or provisioned by SAP. SAP hosts it centrally for all customers under https://dashboard.kyma.cloud.sap. The dashboard is empty when first started and wants to connect to a Kubernetes cluster. This can be provided using a kubeconfig.yaml file consisting of the location of the cluster, cluster name, authentication details, and more. Multiple clusters can be managed in one dashboard.

The Kyma dashboard follows a modular approach to define the features and functions available in the dashboard for your user. You can add and configure modules at any time. If you decide that some of them are not needed for your use case, you can disable them and free the resources.

Kyma modules are deployed in two release channels:

• The regular channel is the default release channel.

• The fast channel provides more frequent releases offering early previews of new features before they are promoted to the regular channel.

You can use one or both release channels in your Kyma cluster, but you can define only one release channel per module.

The following modules are active by default:

API Gateway

Allows you to expose and secure APIs.

SAP BTP Operator

Allows you to create and manage SAP BTP services in Kyma.

Istio

Allows you to monitor traffic, telemetry, and security in complex deployments.

SAP BTP supports Kyma environments and Kubernetes runtimes:

Kyma

The SAP BTP, Kyma runtime is a service that manages one ore more namespaces.

Namespace

A namespace provides resources and settings for apps and service instances.

Service Instance

A service instance runs together with apps and other service instances in a namespace.

Resource Quota

The SAP BTP, Kyma runtime may define resource quotas for namespaces based on the quota of its entitlement.

A namespace is a runtime of a Kyma environment. The Kyma environment manages these namespaces and defines resource quotas to size them. Service instances run in a namespace. A Kyma environment contains what is referred to as a cluster.

SAP provides as part of the SAP BTP Administrator's Guide recommendations for structuring and naming Kyma cluster and namespaces. Like every recommendation, it is depending on your company's requirements.

From the Overview of a subaccount, the Kyma environment can be easily enabled by choosing Enable Kyma. There can be only one environment per subaccount, but this environment can have many namespaces.

After enabling the Kyma environment, the subaccount overview provides the Console URL as a direct link to the Kyma dashboard, the APIServerURL, and KubeconfigURL.

The kubeconfig.yaml for an SAP BTP, Kyma runtime can be downloaded via the KubeconfigURL in the subaccount overview of the SAP BTP cockpit. After the download, the file can just be dragged and dropped in the Kyma dashboard. You can decide if the data should be:

• Persisted in the browser locally
• Stored in the browser session
• Put in the memory until the next page refresh

In the SAP BTP cockpit, the dashboard can also be launched directly for the selected SAP BTP, Kyma runtime:

• In the Overview section
• In the Instances and Subscriptions section

The logon information is saved in the browser session.

A namespace can be created by just giving it a name. Resource quotas can be applied to limit the total memory consumption in a namespace, and limit ranges can be defined as memory constraints for individual containers in a namespace. Both work independently from each other, can already be set during creation, and are managed inside the namespace Overview.

An example of a service instance is the app-host service plan of HTML5 Application Repository Service. It uses a numeric quota and can therefore be used in as many subaccounts in parallel as there's quota available.

In the Kyma dashboard, a namespace can be opened by selecting the line in the Namespaces table of a cluster. You can jump from one namespace to another one by selecting it in the namespaces dropdown at the top of the menu. Both will show the details like deployed applications or service instances running in the namespace.

In the Kyma dashboard, a service can be created from the Service Management→Service Instances in a namespace. All services like the HTML5 Application Repository Service require an Offering Name and Plan Name. Both can be found in the online documentation or in the Service Marketplace of the SAP BTP cockpit. The technical (offering) name is underneath the heading and the service plans are shown in a table under the description.

Once created, new services appear under Service Management→Service Instances in the Kyma dashboard and under Services→Instances and Subscriptions in the SAP BTP cockpit.

Services hosted by Kyma are not visible in the SAP BTP cockpit. In the Instances and Subscriptions of a subaccount, beside the Kyma environment, the SAP Service Manager can be found. It's the central registry for service brokers and platforms in SAP BTP.

This service instance allows you to consume platform capabilities in any connected runtime environment, track the creation and managing of service instances, and share services and service instances between different environments. It's created and deleted automatically when creating or deleting a Kyma runtime in SAP BTP.