ARM64 architectures are increasingly being adopted at the edge due to their unique combination of efficiency, scalability, and flexibility. As workloads continue to shift toward the edge, lightweight and flexible Kubernetes management on ARM64 infrastructure is becoming essential to meet both performance and operational requirements.

OpenNebula provides native support for ARM64, officially certified on Ampere® Altra® servers, enabling efficient deployment and management of Kubernetes clusters on ARM64-based edge hosts using the CAPI appliance and Rancher’s web interface.

How It Works: Provisioning Kubernetes with OpenNebula

Here’s how the entire process works—from infrastructure deployment to Kubernetes cluster management.

1. Deploy OpenNebula on ARM64 with OneDeploy

The full environment—frontend and hosts—is set up using OneDeploy, our infrastructure-as-code tool based on Ansible. This enables automated configuration of ARM64 edge infrastructure.

2. Import the CAPI Appliance

The CAPI Appliance is pulled from the OpenNebula Marketplace. It automates the provisioning and configuration of VMs needed to launch the Kubernetes cluster. The appliance doesn’t need to run on the same infrastructure—only proper network access is required.

3. Launch Rancher and Configure the Cluster

Rancher’s UI is used to install the capone-rke2 Helm chart with a custom YAML that includes Kubernetes and OpenNebula-specific settings. Rancher handles the lifecycle management from here.

Scaling and Upgrading with Rancher

Once the cluster is imported into Rancher, you can:

• Scale: change the number of worker nodes by editing the YAML definition.
• Upgrade: move to a newer Kubernetes version via Rancher’s UI—no manual intervention needed.

OpenNebula handles the underlying infrastructure, ensuring smooth VM provisioning, monitoring, and backup operations.

Watch the Screencast

The demo covers:

• Deploying OpenNebula with OneDeploy on ARM64
• Setting up the CAPI Appliance
• Installing a Kubernetes cluster via Rancher
• Scaling and upgrading the cluster

Whether you’re exploring edge deployments or testing ARM64-based infrastructure, this setup demonstrates how to build and manage lightweight Kubernetes clusters with full control—using OpenNebula, Rancher, and the CAPI Appliance.

Looking Ahead

This use case reflects our commitment to enabling scalable, efficient, and open cloud-native solutions at the edge.

Stay tuned for more guides and demos that show how OpenNebula supports next-gen edge infrastructure.

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