System Load Demonstrator

A Flask web application to generate and visualize configurable system load (CPU, Memory, I/O) deployed to Kubernetes (Minikube) and monitored with Prometheus & Grafana.

Features

• Configurable Load Generation:
  • Modes: CPU Heavy, Memory Heavy, I/O Heavy, Balanced.
  • Adjustable iterations and data sizes.
  • CPU Algorithms: Fibonacci, Prime Factorization, Hashing.
  • Optional override flags for forcing specific load types.
• Web UI: Simple HTML form to trigger load scenarios.
• Prometheus Metrics: Exposes application and process metrics via /metrics.
• Containerized & Kubernetes Ready: Dockerfile and Kubernetes manifests for Minikube.
• CI/CD: GitHub Actions for building and pushing images to GHCR.

Tech Stack

• Application: Python 3.11, Flask, Gunicorn
• Metrics Library: prometheus_flask_exporter
• Containerization: Docker
• Orchestration: Kubernetes (Minikube)
• CI/CD: GitHub Actions, GitHub Container Registry (GHCR)
• Monitoring: Prometheus (via kube-prometheus-stack)
• Visualization: Grafana (via kube-prometheus-stack)

Project Setup & Run

Prerequisites:

• Git
• Docker Desktop (or Docker Engine)
• Minikube (started, minikube start)
• kubectl (configured for Minikube)
• Helm

1. Clone Repository:

git clone https://github.com/VyvaHart/system-load-demonstrator.git
cd system-load-demonstrator
git checkout dev # Or main

2. ImagePullSecret (If GHCR Package is Private):

kubectl create secret docker-registry ghcr-secret \
  --docker-server=ghcr.io \
  --docker-username=YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME \
  --docker-password=YOUR_GHCR_PAT \
  --namespace=default

3. Deploy Monitoring Stack (Prometheus & Grafana): This uses the kube-prometheus-stack Helm chart

helm repo add prometheus-community https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update
helm install prometheus prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack \
  --namespace prometheus \
  --create-namespace \
  --wait

4. Deploy the Load Shifter Application: Choose to deploy the dev or main version (manifests are in k8s/)

kubectl apply -f k8s/deployment.yaml
kubectl apply -f k8s/service.yaml
kubectl apply -f k8s/servicemonitor.yaml

5. Access the Application:

# This will open the application UI in your browser. Use the form to generate load
minikube service load-shifter-service --namespace=default

6. Access Monitoring UIs:

• Prometheus:

# Find the Prometheus server service (prometheus-operated in my case)
# kubectl get svc -n prometheus
kubectl port-forward svc/prometheus-operated -n prometheus 9090:9090

Open http://localhost:9090. Check [Status -> Target health] to ensure your app is UP

• Grafana:

# Get Grafana admin password
kubectl get secret prometheus-grafana -n prometheus -o jsonpath="{.data.admin-password}" | base64 --decode ; echo
# Access Grafana service
minikube service prometheus-grafana -n prometheus

This setup provides a great hands-on learning experience. Have fun exploring!