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Version: release-0.9

Manage Qdrant with KubeBlocks

The popularity of generative AI (Generative AI) has aroused widespread attention and completely ignited the vector database (Vector Database) market. Qdrant (read: quadrant) is a vector similarity search engine and vector database. It provides a production-ready service with a convenient API to store, search, and manage points—vectors with an additional payload Qdrant is tailored to extended filtering support. It makes it useful for all sorts of neural-network or semantic-based matching, faceted search, and other applications.

KubeBlocks supports the management of Qdrant. This tutorial illustrates how to create and manage a Qdrant cluster by kbcli, kubectl or a YAML file. You can find the YAML examples in the GitHub repository.

Before you start​

Create a cluster​

Steps

KubeBlocks implements a Cluster CRD to define a cluster. Here is an example of creating a Qdrant Replication cluster. Primary and Secondary are distributed on different nodes by default. But if you only have one node for deploying a Replication Cluster, set spec.affinity.topologyKeys as null.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: apps.kubeblocks.io/v1alpha1
kind: Cluster
metadata:
  name: mycluster
  namespace: demo
spec:
  terminationPolicy: Delete
  componentSpecs:
  - name: qdrant
    componentDef: qdrant
    affinity:
      podAntiAffinity: Preferred
      topologyKeys:
      - kubernetes.io/hostname
      tenancy: SharedNode
    tolerations:
    - key: kb-data
      operator: Equal
      value: 'true'
      effect: NoSchedule
    disableExporter: true 
    replicas: 2
    resources:
      limits:
        cpu: '0.5'
        memory: 0.5Gi
      requests:
        cpu: '0.5'
        memory: 0.5Gi
    volumeClaimTemplates:
    - name: data
      spec:
        accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 20Gi
EOF
FieldDefinition
spec.terminationPolicyIt is the policy of cluster termination. The default value is Delete. Valid values are DoNotTerminate, Delete, WipeOut. For the detailed definition, you can refer to Termination Policy.
spec.affinityIt defines a set of node affinity scheduling rules for the cluster's Pods. This field helps control the placement of Pods on nodes within the cluster.
spec.affinity.podAntiAffinityIt specifies the anti-affinity level of Pods within a component. It determines how pods should spread across nodes to improve availability and performance.
spec.affinity.topologyKeysIt represents the key of node labels used to define the topology domain for Pod anti-affinity and Pod spread constraints.
spec.tolerationsIt is an array that specifies tolerations attached to the cluster's Pods, allowing them to be scheduled onto nodes with matching taints.
spec.componentSpecsIt is the list of components that define the cluster components. This field allows customized configuration of each component within a cluster.
spec.componentSpecs.componentDefRefIt is the name of the component definition that is defined in the cluster definition and you can get the component definition names with kubectl get clusterdefinition qdrant -o json | jq '.spec.componentDefs[].name'.
spec.componentSpecs.nameIt specifies the name of the component.
spec.componentSpecs.disableExporterIt defines whether the monitoring function is enabled.
spec.componentSpecs.replicasIt specifies the number of replicas of the component.
spec.componentSpecs.resourcesIt specifies the resource requirements of the component.

KubeBlocks operator watches for the Cluster CRD and creates the cluster and all dependent resources. You can get all the resources created by the cluster with kubectl get all,secret,rolebinding,serviceaccount -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=mycluster -n demo.

kubectl get all,secret,rolebinding,serviceaccount -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=mycluster -n demo

Run the following command to see the created Qdrant cluster object:

kubectl get cluster mycluster -n demo -o yaml

Connect to a Qdrant 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.

  1. Run the following command to port forward the service.

    kubectl port-forward svc/mycluster-qdrant 6333:6333 -n demo

  2. Open a new terminal and run the following command to connect to the database.

    curl http://127.0.0.1:6333/collections

    Refer to the official Qdrant documents for the cluster operations.

Scale​

The scaling function for Qdrant is also supported.

Scale horizontally​

Horizontal scaling changes the amount of pods. For example, you can scale out replicas from three to five.

From v0.9.0, besides replicas, KubeBlocks also supports scaling in and out instances, refer to the Horizontal Scale tutorial for more details and examples.

Before you start​

Check whether the cluster status is Running. Otherwise, the following operations may fail.

kubectl get cluster mycluster -n demo
>
NAME        CLUSTER-DEFINITION   VERSION        TERMINATION-POLICY     STATUS    AGE
mycluster   qdrant                              Delete                 Running   47m

Steps​

  1. Apply an OpsRequest to a specified cluster. Configure the parameters according to your needs.

    The example below means adding two replicas.

    kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
    apiVersion: apps.kubeblocks.io/v1alpha1
    kind: OpsRequest
    metadata:
      name: ops-horizontal-scaling
      namespace: demo
    spec:
      clusterName: mycluster
      type: HorizontalScaling
      horizontalScaling:
      - componentName: qdrant
        scaleOut:
          replicaChanges: 2
    EOF

    If you want to scale in replicas, replace scaleOut with scaleIn.

    The example below means deleting two replicas.

    kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
    apiVersion: apps.kubeblocks.io/v1alpha1
    kind: OpsRequest
    metadata:
      name: ops-horizontal-scaling
      namespace: demo
    spec:
      clusterName: mycluster
      type: HorizontalScaling
      horizontalScaling:
      - componentName: qdrant
        scaleIn:
          replicaChanges: 2
    EOF

  2. Check the operation status to validate the horizontal scaling status.

    kubectl get ops -n demo
    >
    NAMESPACE   NAME                     TYPE                CLUSTER     STATUS    PROGRESS   AGE
    demo        ops-horizontal-scaling   HorizontalScaling   mycluster   Succeed   3/3        6m

    If an error occurs, you can troubleshoot with kubectl describe ops -n demo command to view the events of this operation.

  3. Check whether the corresponding resources change.

    kubectl describe cluster mycluster -n demo

Scale vertically​

You can vertically scale a cluster by changing resource requirements and limits (CPU and storage). For example, you can change the resource class from 1C2G to 2C4G by performing vertical scaling.

Before you start​

Check whether the cluster status is Running. Otherwise, the following operations may fail.

kubectl get cluster mycluster -n demo
>
NAME        CLUSTER-DEFINITION   VERSION        TERMINATION-POLICY     STATUS    AGE
mycluster   qdrant                              Delete                 Running   47m

Steps​

  1. Apply an OpsRequest to the specified cluster. Configure the parameters according to your needs.

    kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
    apiVersion: apps.kubeblocks.io/v1alpha1
    kind: OpsRequest
    metadata:
      name: ops-vertical-scaling
      namespace: demo
    spec:
      clusterName: mycluster
      type: VerticalScaling
      verticalScaling:
      - componentName: qdrant
        requests:
          memory: "2Gi"
          cpu: "1"
        limits:
          memory: "4Gi"
          cpu: "2"
    EOF

  2. Check the operation status to validate the vertical scaling.

    kubectl get ops -n demo
    >
    NAMESPACE   NAME                   TYPE              CLUSTER     STATUS    PROGRESS   AGE
    demo        ops-vertical-scaling   VerticalScaling   mycluster   Succeed   3/3        6m

    If an error occurs, you can troubleshoot with kubectl describe ops -n demo command to view the events of this operation.

  3. Check whether the corresponding resources change.

    kubectl describe cluster mycluster -n demo

Volume Expansion​

Before you start​

Check whether the cluster status is Running. Otherwise, the following operations may fail.

kubectl get cluster mycluster -n demo
>
NAME        CLUSTER-DEFINITION   VERSION        TERMINATION-POLICY     STATUS    AGE
mycluster   qdrant                              Delete                 Running   47m

Steps​

  1. Change the value of storage according to your need and run the command below to expand the volume of a cluster.

    kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
    apiVersion: apps.kubeblocks.io/v1alpha1
    kind: OpsRequest
    metadata:
      name: ops-volume-expansion
      namespace: demo
    spec:
      clusterName: mycluster
      type: VolumeExpansion
      volumeExpansion:
      - componentName: qdrant
        volumeClaimTemplates:
        - name: data
          storage: "40Gi"
    EOF

  2. Validate the volume expansion operation.

    kubectl get ops -n demo
    >
    NAMESPACE   NAME                   TYPE              CLUSTER     STATUS    PROGRESS   AGE
    demo        ops-volume-expansion   VolumeExpansion   mycluster   Succeed   3/3        6m

    If an error occurs, you can troubleshoot with kubectl describe ops -n demo command to view the events of this operation.

  3. Check whether the corresponding cluster resources change.

    kubectl describe cluster mycluster -n demo

Restart​

  1. Restart a cluster.

    kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
    apiVersion: apps.kubeblocks.io/v1alpha1
    kind: OpsRequest
    metadata:
      name: ops-restart
      namespace: demo
    spec:
      clusterName: mycluster
      type: Restart 
      restart:
      - componentName: qdrant
    EOF

  2. Check the pod and operation status to validate the restarting.

    kubectl get pod -n demo
    kubectl get ops ops-restart -n demo

    During the restarting process, there are two status types for pods.

    • STATUS=Terminating: it means the cluster restart is in progress.
    • STATUS=Running: it means the cluster has been restarted.

Stop/Start a cluster​

You can stop/start a cluster to save computing resources. When a cluster is stopped, the computing resources of this cluster are released, which means the pods of Kubernetes are released, but the storage resources are reserved. You can start this cluster again by snapshots if you want to restore the cluster resources.

Stop a cluster​

  1. Configure the name of your cluster and run the command below to stop this cluster.

    Configure replicas as 0 to delete pods.

    kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
    apiVersion: apps.kubeblocks.io/v1alpha1
    kind: OpsRequest
    metadata:
      name: ops-stop
      namespace: demo
    spec:
      clusterName: mycluster
      type: Stop
    EOF

  2. Check the status of the cluster to see whether it is stopped.

    kubectl get cluster mycluster -n demo

Start a cluster​

  1. Configure the name of your cluster and run the command below to start this cluster.

    Run the command below to start a cluster.

    kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
    apiVersion: apps.kubeblocks.io/v1alpha1
    kind: OpsRequest
    metadata:
      name: ops-start
      namespace: demo
    spec:
      clusterName: mycluster
      type: Start
    EOF

  2. Check the status of the cluster to see whether it is running again.

    kubectl get cluster mycluster -n demo

Delete a cluster​

Termination policy​

note

The termination policy determines how a cluster is deleted.

terminationPolicyDeleting Operation
DoNotTerminateDoNotTerminate blocks delete operation.
HaltHalt deletes Cluster resources like Pods and Services but retains Persistent Volume Claims (PVCs), allowing for data preservation while stopping other operations. Halt policy is deprecated in v0.9.1 and will have same meaning as DoNotTerminate.
DeleteDelete extends the Halt policy by also removing PVCs, leading to a thorough cleanup while removing all persistent data.
WipeOutWipeOut deletes all Cluster resources, including volume snapshots and backups in external storage. This results in complete data removal and should be used cautiously, especially in non-production environments, to avoid irreversible data loss.

To check the termination policy, execute the following command.

kubectl get cluster mycluster -n demo
>
NAME        CLUSTER-DEFINITION   VERSION        TERMINATION-POLICY     STATUS    AGE
mycluster   qdrant                              Delete                 Running   47m

Steps​

Run the command below to delete a specified cluster.

If you want to delete a cluster and its all related resources, you can modify the termination policy to WipeOut, then delete the cluster.

kubectl patch -n demo cluster mycluster -p '{"spec":{"terminationPolicy":"WipeOut"}}' --type="merge"

kubectl delete -n demo cluster mycluster

Backup and restore​

The backup and restore operations for Qdrant are the same as those of other clusters and you can refer to the backup and restore documents for details. Remember to use --method parameter.