Managing Targets

As your adoption of Ctrlplane grows, you may find yourself managing hundreds or even thousands of targets. This scale of operation requires efficient tools and strategies to maintain visibility, control, and agility. Ctrlplane offers several features to help you manage large numbers of targets effectively.

Target Groups

Target Groups are a powerful feature that allow you to organize and manage your targets based on their labels. This grouping mechanism makes it easy to categorize and find similar targets, providing a more efficient way to manage your infrastructure at scale.

How Target Groups Work

Target Groups use the labels assigned to your targets to automatically group them together. Each unique combination of labels can form a distinct group, allowing for flexible and dynamic categorization.

Creating Target Groups

Target Groups are created automatically based on the labels you assign to your targets. To effectively use Target Groups:

1. Plan your labeling strategy to reflect meaningful categories for your infrastructure.
2. Consistently apply labels to your targets as you add them to your system.
3. Use the Target Groups view in the dashboard to see how your targets are organized.

Use Cases for Target Groups

Target Groups can be incredibly versatile. Here are some common use cases:

1. Region-based Grouping: Group targets by geographical region or data center location.

   • Example labels: region: us-west, region: eu-central

2. Infrastructure Size: Categorize targets by their resource allocation or capacity.

   • Example labels: size: small, size: medium, size: large

3. Kubernetes Version: Group targets running different versions of Kubernetes.

   • Example labels: kubernetes/version: 1.22, kubernetes/version: 1.23

4. Customer Segmentation: For multi-tenant systems, group targets by customer or business size.

   • Example labels: customer: acme-corp, business-size: enterprise

5. Service Type: Group targets by the primary service they run.

   • Example labels: service: web-server, service: database, service: cache

Benefits of Using Target Groups

1. Improved Organization: Easily manage large numbers of targets by grouping them logically.
2. Efficient Operations: Quickly identify and work with specific subsets of your infrastructure.
3. Consistent Management: Apply policies, updates, or actions to entire groups of similar targets.
4. Enhanced Visibility: Gain better insights into your infrastructure composition and distribution.

Best Practices for Target Groups

1. Consistent Labeling: Develop and adhere to a consistent labeling strategy across your organization.
2. Meaningful Labels: Choose labels that provide valuable information and aid in practical grouping.
3. Avoid Over-Complexity: While labels are powerful, too many can lead to overly complex groupings. Aim for a balance.
4. Regular Review: Periodically review and update your labeling strategy as your infrastructure evolves.

By effectively using Target Groups, you can significantly improve your ability to manage, monitor, and maintain your infrastructure, especially as it grows in size and complexity.

Target Views

Target Views are a powerful feature that allow you to create, save, and reuse filters for your targets. These views provide a convenient way to organize and manage large sets of targets, making it easier to focus on specific subsets of your infrastructure.

Creating a Target View

To create a Target View:

1. Navigate to the Targets section in your dashboard.
2. Apply the desired filters to your targets.
3. Click on the "Save View" button.
4. Give your view a name and description.

Using Target Views

Once created, Target Views can be accessed from the Targets page. You can:

• Quickly switch between different views to focus on specific target subsets.
• Use views as a starting point for further filtering or actions.
• Share views with team members to ensure consistent target selection across your organization.

Example Use Cases

1. Environment-based Views: Create views for different environments (e.g., Production, Staging, Development).
2. Region-based Views: Organize targets by geographical regions or data centers.
3. Service-based Views: Group targets by the services they run.
4. Status-based Views: Filter targets based on their current status or health.

Updating and Managing Views

You can edit or delete existing views as your infrastructure evolves:

• To update a view, apply new filters and save over the existing view.
• To delete a view, select it and use the delete option in the view management interface.

Target Views are a valuable tool for maintaining organization and efficiency in your target management workflow, especially as your infrastructure grows in size and complexity.

Locking Targets

Target locking is a crucial feature that allows you to temporarily prevent any pipelines from running against specific targets. This is particularly useful for maintenance, troubleshooting, or when you need to ensure that a target remains in a stable state.

How Target Locking Works

When you lock a target:

1. All scheduled and ongoing pipeline runs against that target are immediately halted.
2. New pipeline runs cannot be initiated for the locked target.
3. The target remains locked until it is manually unlocked.

When to Use Target Locking

Consider locking a target in the following scenarios:

• During critical maintenance periods
• When investigating issues that require a stable environment
• To prevent accidental deployments or changes
• When preparing for major updates or migrations

Locking a Target

To lock a target:

1. Navigate to the Targets section in your dashboard.
2. Find the target you want to lock.
3. Click on the "Lock" button.
4. Optionally, provide a reason for locking the target.

Unlocking a Target

To unlock a target:

1. Go to the Targets section and find the locked target.
2. Click on the "Unlock" button or toggle.
3. Confirm the action to unlock the target.

Best Practices

• Always provide a reason when locking a target to inform team members.
• Regularly review locked targets to ensure they are unlocked when no longer needed.
• Use target locking in conjunction with your change management processes.

Permissions and Auditing

• Typically, locking and unlocking targets requires elevated permissions.
• All lock and unlock actions are logged for auditing purposes.

By using target locking judiciously, you can maintain better control over your infrastructure and prevent unintended changes during critical periods.