Manage Vector Databases with KubeBlocks

The popularity of generative AI (Generative AI) has aroused widespread attention and completely ignited the vector database (Vector Database) market. KubeBlocks supports the management of vector databases, such as Qdrant, Milvus, and Weaviate.

In this chapter, we take Qdrant as an example to show how to manage vector databases with KubeBlocks. Before you start, install KubeBlocks and kbcli.

Create a cluster

Steps

1. Execute the following command to create a Qdrant cluster. You can change the cluster-definition value as any other databases supported.

   kbcli cluster create qdrant --cluster-definition=qdrant

   If you want to create a Qdrant cluster with multiple replicas. Use the following command and set the replica numbers.

   kbcli cluster create qdrant --cluster-definition=qdrant --set replicas=3

2. Check whether the cluster is created.

   kbcli cluster list
   >
   NAME     NAMESPACE   CLUSTER-DEFINITION   VERSION        TERMINATION-POLICY   STATUS    CREATED-TIME
   qdrant   default     qdrant               qdrant-1.1.0   Delete               Running   Aug 15,2023 23:03 UTC+0800

3. Check the cluster information.

   kbcli cluster describe qdrant
   >
   Name: qdrant         Created Time: Aug 15,2023 23:03 UTC+0800
   NAMESPACE   CLUSTER-DEFINITION   VERSION        STATUS    TERMINATION-POLICY
   default     qdrant               qdrant-1.1.0   Running   Delete
   
   Endpoints:
   COMPONENT   MODE        INTERNAL                                       EXTERNAL
   qdrant      ReadWrite   qdrant-qdrant.default.svc.cluster.local:6333   <none>
                           qdrant-qdrant.default.svc.cluster.local:6334
   
   Topology:
   COMPONENT   INSTANCE          ROLE     STATUS    AZ       NODE                   CREATED-TIME
   qdrant      qdrant-qdrant-0   <none>   Running   <none>   x-worker3/172.20.0.3   Aug 15,2023 23:03 UTC+0800
   qdrant      qdrant-qdrant-1   <none>   Running   <none>   x-worker2/172.20.0.5   Aug 15,2023 23:03 UTC+0800
   qdrant      qdrant-qdrant-2   <none>   Running   <none>   x-worker/172.20.0.2    Aug 15,2023 23:04 UTC+0800
   
   Resources Allocation:
   COMPONENT   DEDICATED   CPU(REQUEST/LIMIT)   MEMORY(REQUEST/LIMIT)   STORAGE-SIZE   STORAGE-CLASS
   qdrant      false       1 / 1                1Gi / 1Gi               data:20Gi      standard
   
   Images:
   COMPONENT   TYPE     IMAGE
   qdrant      qdrant   docker.io/qdrant/qdrant:latest
   
   Data Protection:
   AUTO-BACKUP   BACKUP-SCHEDULE   TYPE     BACKUP-TTL   LAST-SCHEDULE   RECOVERABLE-TIME
   Disabled      <none>            <none>   7d           <none>          <none>
   
   Show cluster events: kbcli cluster list-events -n default qdrant

Connect to a vector database cluster

Qdrant provides both HTTP and gRPC protocols for client access on ports 6333 and 6334 respectively. Depending on where the client is, different connection options are offered to connect to the Qdrant cluster.

note

If your cluster is on AWS, install the AWS Load Balancer Controller first.

• If your client is inside a K8s cluster, run kbcli cluster describe qdrant to get the ClusterIP address of the cluster or the corresponding K8s cluster domain name.
• If your client is outside the K8s cluster but in the same VPC as the server, run kbcli cluster expose qdant --enable=true --type=vpc to get a VPC load balancer address for the database cluster.
• If your client is outside the VPC, run kbcli cluster expose qdant --enable=true --type=internet to open a public network reachable address for the database cluster.

Monitor the vector database

Open the grafana monitor web page.

kbcli dashboard open kubeblocks-grafana

When executing this command, browser is opened and you can see the dashboard.

Scaling

Scaling function for vector databases is also supported.

Scale horizontally

Use the following command to perform horizontal scaling.

kbcli cluster hscale qdrant --replicas=5 --components=qdrant

Please wait a few seconds until the scaling process is over.

The kbcli cluster hscale command print the opsname, to check the progress of horizontal scaling, you can use the following command with the opsname.

kubectl get ops qdrant-horizontalscaling-xpdwz
>
NAME                             TYPE                CLUSTER   STATUS    PROGRESS   AGE
qdrant-horizontalscaling-xpdwz   HorizontalScaling   qdrant    Running   0/2        16s

To check whether the scaling is done, use the following command.

kbcli cluster describe qdrant

Scale vertically

Use the following command to perform vertical scaling.

kbcli cluster vscale qdrant --cpu=0.5 --memory=512Mi --components=qdrant 

Please wait a few seconds until the scaling process is over. The kbcli cluster vscale command print the opsname, to check the progress of scaling, you can use the following command with the opsname.

kubectl get ops qdrant-verticalscaling-rpw2l
>
NAME                           TYPE              CLUSTER   STATUS    PROGRESS   AGE
qdrant-verticalscaling-rpw2l   VerticalScaling   qdrant    Running   1/5        44s

To check whether the scaling is done, use the following command.

kbcli cluster describe qdrant

Volume Expanding

Steps:

kbcli cluster volume-expand qdrant --storage=40Gi --components=qdrant -t data

The volume expanding may take a few minutes.

The kbcli cluster volume-expand command print the opsname, to check the progress of volume expanding, you can use the following command with the opsname.

kubectl get ops qdrant-volumeexpansion-5pbd2
>
NAME                           TYPE              CLUSTER   STATUS   PROGRESS   AGE
qdrant-volumeexpansion-5pbd2   VolumeExpansion   qdrant    Running  -/-        67s

To check whether the expanding is done, use the following command.

kbcli cluster describe qdrant