Overview of the TimesTen Operator

The TimesTen Operator is an application that functions like a human operator. It creates, monitors, and manages TimesTen databases in a Kubernetes cluster. It configures a database, configures the database's users and schema, and if applicable, configures cache and replication. The TimesTen Operator automatically manages and monitors the health of TimesTen databases and takes action to fix problems. For example, in an active standby pair replication scheme, if the active database fails, the TimesTen Operator takes automatic action by promoting the standby to the new active. Kubernetes replaces the failed Pod that contains the active database. The TimesTen Operator brings TimesTen back up as the new standby in this replaced Pod. The TimesTen Operator performs these operations automatically and there is no human intervention needed. This one TimesTen Operator creates and manages many TimesTen databases simultaneously in your namespace .

The TimesTen Operator is namespace-scoped. If you deploy a TimesTen Operator into namespace X, this Operator manages TimesTenClassic and TimesTenScaleout objects and their corresponding TimesTen databases in namespace X. Other namespaces cannot use this Operator. If you want to create TimesTenClassic or TimesTenScaleout objects in another namespace (for example, namespace Y), you must first install the TimesTen Operator in namespace Y.

You install the TimesTen Operator by applying the operator.yaml YAML manifest file or installing the ttoperator Helm chart in your namespace in a Kubernetes cluster. TimesTen provides this file and Helm chart in its container image. For information about obtaining this file and chart from a TimesTen container image, see Part 3: Obtain TimesTen YAML Manifest Files and Helm Charts.

The information in this chapter focuses on the operator.yaml YAML manifest file. For information about the ttoperator Helm chart, see Use Helm in Your TimesTen Kubernetes Operator Environment.