JumpToTech DevOps + AI Bootcamp Hands-On Lab: Kubernetes Monitoring, Grafana Persistence, Gmail SMTP, and Production Alerts
Environment: AWS EKS Namespace: dev Tools: Kubernetes, Helm, Prometheus, Grafana, AWS EBS CSI Driver, Gmail SMTP Estimated duration: 2–3 hours Difficulty: Intermediate Learning objectives By the end of this lab, students will be able to: Deploy Prometheus and Grafana into Kubernetes. Configure persistent storage for Grafana using AWS EBS. Understand the difference between emptyDir and…
In this DevOps + AI Bootcamp hands-on lab, participants will learn to deploy Prometheus and Grafana in a Kubernetes environment, configure persistent storage for Grafana using AWS EBS, and secure Gmail SMTP using Kubernetes Secrets. The lab covers creating Grafana email contact points, notification policies, and an ImagePullBackOff alert using PromQL. Additionally, students will simulate a Kubernetes incident and verify that Grafana data survives a Pod restart.
To begin, participants must verify their AWS identity and connect to their EKS cluster. They will then create a dedicated dev namespace for deploying application and monitoring resources. The lab emphasizes using their own development EKS cluster or an instructor-approved isolated lab environment, ensuring not to modify existing production monitoring releases.
The second part of the lab focuses on verifying AWS EBS storage. Students are instructed to check the EBS CSI driver and StorageClasses, ensuring that a gp3 StorageClass exists and is provisioned correctly. This step is crucial for storing persistent data for the Grafana application.
Next, the lab proceeds to install Prometheus and Grafana in the dev namespace. Participants start by checking their Helm installation, adding the Prometheus repository, and creating a working directory for configuration files. They will then create a monitoring-values.yaml file that enables persistent storage for Grafana using a gp3 StorageClass and sets resource requests and limits. Afterward, they will install the monitoring stack using Helm, verify the deployment status, and inspect Grafana Pod and PVC details.
Once Grafana is up and running, students must verify it persists data across Pod restarts by examining the persistent volume claim (PVC). They will also access Grafana, retrieve the admin password, and start port-forwarding to access the Grafana UI.
Throughout the lab, students will explore important architecture decisions, such as the difference between emptyDir and PersistentVolumeClaims, and the implications of using emptyDir for persistent storage like Grafana. The lab concludes with a discussion on how Grafana dashboards would be affected if emptyDir were used instead of a PVC, reinforcing the importance of PersistentVolumeClaims for persistent applications.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
