Generate a report of over 50+ advisories completely tailored to your Kubernetes clusters across any of your prod or pre-prod environments. Join Alice Gibbons, Diagrid customer success engineer, as she deep dives into the advisories offered by Conductor Enterprise, including:

• Common development misconfigurations such as Dapr resource scoping
• Zero trust security features for communication and infrastructure access
• Reliability recommendations for high availability deployments & improved application health
• And more!

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Video Summary: "Productionizing" Your Dapr-Enabled Applications with Diagrid Conductor Advisor

Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime) has emerged as a powerful open-source project for simplifying the development of cloud-native, distributed applications. However, running Dapr at scale in production presents challenges, from resource allocation to security and version upgrades. This is where Diagrid Conductor, a commercial offering, comes in—providing an enterprise-grade solution to operate Dapr with confidence.

The Challenges of Running Dapr in Production

While Kubernetes has become the de facto standard for cloud-native applications, integrating Dapr introduces complexities, including:

• Resource Allocation: Determining appropriate CPU and memory limits with a sidecar model.
• Certificate Management: The open-source version installs self-signed certificates that expire annually, causing potential downtime.
• Version Upgrades: Keeping up with frequent Dapr updates and managing canary deployments effectively.

Addressing These Challenges with Diagrid Conductor

Diagrid Conductor streamlines Dapr operations with:

• Automated Scaling & Resource Management
• Zero-Downtime Certificate Rotation
• Seamless Version Management & Canary Deployments
• Enterprise-Grade Support with 1-Hour Response Times
• Comprehensive Best Practices Advisory

Conductor Architecture: Simplifying Dapr Operations

Conductor functions as a control plane manager, ensuring Dapr’s smooth operation in Kubernetes clusters. The architecture includes:

• Agent-based Management: A lightweight agent installed on the cluster interacts securely with Diagrid Cloud.
• SOC 2 Type 2 Compliance: Ensuring enterprise-grade security.
• Multi-Cluster Support: Works with on-prem, cloud, and local clusters (e.g., Kind, Minikube).

Key Features of Conductor Advisor

‍Security Best Practices

• Certificate Expiry Notifications: Avoid outages due to expired self-signed certs.
• Component Version Monitoring: Ensuring deprecated versions are not used.
• Zero-Trust Configuration: Scoped access control for Dapr components and subscriptions.
• Secret Management: Preventing credentials from being stored as plain text.

Reliability & High Availability

• High Availability Mode for Placement Service: Deploying three replicas for mission-critical apps.
• Automated Dapr Upgrades: Ensuring a seamless upgrade process with rollback capabilities.
• Real-Time Application Graph: Visualizing service-to-service calls and dependencies.

Performance Optimization

• Automated Resource Recommendations: Analyzing CPU and memory usage to optimize requests and limits.
• Reducing High Cardinality Metrics: Avoiding excessive log volume and monitoring costs.

Observability & Debugging

• Automated Issue Detection: Identifying network and initialization errors in Dapr components.
• Health Check Advisories: Ensuring apps remain responsive under load.
• Customizable JSON Logging: Facilitating structured logs for monitoring backends.

Seamless Dapr Upgrades with Zero Downtime

One of Conductor’s most valuable features is its ability to upgrade Dapr versions safely. The upgrade process:

1. Upgrades the Control Plane First
2. Ensures Stability Before Rolling Out to Sidecars
3. Provides an Automated Rollback on Failure

This feature alone prevents unexpected failures in production environments where downtime is unacceptable.Automating Best Practices with CLI & PipelinesFor DevOps and platform teams, Conductor CLI provides deep integration with CI/CD pipelines, enabling:

• Cluster & Advisory Monitoring via CLI
• Blocking Deployments on Critical Issues
• Customizing Security & Performance Policies

Try Diagrid Conductor Today

If you're using Dapr, whether in development or production, Diagrid Conductor can significantly reduce operational overhead.

• Conductor Trial: For individual developers and local clusters.
• Conductor Enterprise: For organizations with mission-critical workloads.

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Productionizing Dapr doesn’t have to be hard. Let Diagrid Conductor do the heavy lifting for you!

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