Elastic Cloud on SUSE Rancher Kubernetes

Evolution of the Stack

Elastic Stack (AKA ELK Stack) comprises tools like Elasticsearch, Kibana, APM Server, and others. Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) is an evolution of the deployment of this suite of software. It automates the deployment, provisioning, management, and orchestration of the Elastic Stack components on Kubernetes clusters. 

ECK simplifies the process of setting up and maintaining the Elastic Stack on Kubernetes, offering features such as TLS certificate management, safe cluster configuration changes, persistent volume usage, and custom node configurations. It allows platform engineers to configure and manage Elastic Stack clusters at scale using policies, supporting multiple Elasticsearch nodes, automatic application failover, seamless upgrades, and SSL encryption.

Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes is also now certified SUSE Ready for Rancher, so you can deploy it on Rancher’s Kubernetes distributions, RKE2 and K3s, in a tested and supported environment.

Your Mission-Critical Stack, Certified

Deploying mission-critical applications like the Elastic Stack on Kubernetes should make you think about long-term support and platform compatibility. 

For enterprises managing sprawling cloud-native estates, different development and operations teams deploy applications across tens or hundreds of managed clusters, making centralized management and reliable observability non-negotiable. 

While the Elastic Stack provides the critical visibility needed to monitor logs, metrics, and security events, it must run on a foundation that guarantees the same operational integrity. Rancher, managing stable Kubernetes distributions like RKE2 and K3s, is often that trusted platform. The partnership between SUSE and Elastic lets you deploy Elastic’s powerful tools directly and easily onto the platform you are already using for enterprise-grade operations.

This certified integration ensures you can deploy the Elastic Stack (Search, Observability, and Security) on Rancher-managed clusters with a clear, supported, and enterprise-ready path. Our partnership is founded on three critical pillars that eliminate deployment anxiety and guarantee operational excellence.

• Proven Stability and Reliability: Having ECK validated through the SUSE Ready for Rancher certification ensures compatibility, reduced deployment risk, and enterprise trust for partner applications on SUSE Kubernetes distributions.
• Guaranteed Reliability: Running applications like ECK Operator on SUSE-supported K3s or RKE2 distributions in Rancher Prime means …
• Support: The partnership between SUSE and Elastic ensures clear accountability and resolution paths, with support available from Elastic for the certified applications and SUSE for the platform.

Community Strength: Users benefit from the collective knowledge of two companies with a proven track record with the open-source communities in the cloud-native space.

Deploying Elastic Stack with ECK from Rancher Manager

With its inclusion in the Rancher Partner Catalog, you can install the ECK Operator through the Rancher Apps interface:

SUSE Rancher Prime Elastic Cloud Chart

1. Navigate to the Apps > Charts view in Rancher Manager.
2. Select the Partners repository.
3. Search for the ECK Operator chart.
4. Click Install

Once the Operator is running, deploy your Elastic Stack resources (like Elasticsearch and Kibana) using the instructions linked from the chart’s README.

You could install the operator from the command line using the helm or kubectl CLIs as described in the ECK documentation, but the Charts interface in Rancher allows you to see all values available in the chart and provides quick access to reference documentation.

Once the ECK Operator is up and running, you can spin up Elastic Stack components such as an Elasticsearch cluster and a Kibana instance using CRDs provided by the operator. 

Again, these objects can be configured in files and applied with kubectl, or you can find the new CRDs under More Resources in Rancher, and click the Create from YAML button, which brings up a template with all the settings available from the CRD specs.

SUSE Rancher Prime Elastic Cloud Kibana install

With Elasticsearch up, you can start storing and indexing your data, which you can then explore, visualize, and analyze using Kibana.

Rancher Prime Elastic Cloud dashboard

From Insight to Action: Your Next Move

For large enterprises navigating complex, multi-cluster environments, the certified ECK Operator on SUSE Rancher provides a powerful, full-featured, production-ready, and reliable stack running on a stable, certified, and open platform. We ensure your teams can maintain comprehensive observability across your entire estate. Start deploying the certified ECK Operator via the Rancher UI today and gain confidence in your cloud-native search and operational deployments.

Take the next step toward a stable, observable stack:

• Learn more about Rancher Prime
• Get started with the Elastic ECK

Credits
This blog post has been originally authored by the SUSE Rancher & Elastic Cloud Teams