You can create a DigitalOcean Kubernetes Cluster at any time from the Create menu by selecting Clusters. This will take you to the Create a Cluster page.
Once you select Clusters, you’ll have the following choices:
Select a Kubernetes version. The latest stable release is selected by default. Older patch versions of the same minor release are available to support application-specific requirements.
Choose a datacenter region. Choose the region for your cluster. Your cluster master and worker nodes will be located in the same region.
If you plan to use DigitalOcean block storage volumes for persistent data storage, choose a region with block storage support.
If you add a DigitalOcean Load Balancer to your deployment, it will automatically be placed in the same region as the cluster.
Add node pool(s). To create a cluster, you’ll need to add at least one node pool with at least one worker. You can also choose a name for the node pool when it’s created. You cannot rename node pools after you create them.
Each of the workers in a node pool has identical resources. To take advantage of different resource capacities, you can add additional node pools and assign pods to the node pools with the appropriate worker resourcing.
When you create the cluster, billing begins for each worker node as it is created and ends for each worker node as it is destroyed. Additional DigitalOcean resources like block storage volumes or load balancers that are created for the cluster likewise are billed from creation until destruction. By default, three worker nodes are selected because this is the minimum number to ensure high availability. You may wish to decrease to one worker node when you first explore setting up a cluster to keep costs down.
Add tags. Clusters are automatically tagged with:
You can also add your own tags to worker nodes in the Tags field.
Choose a name. By default, cluster names begin with k8s, followed by the version of Kubernetes, the datacenter region, and the cluster ID. You can customize the cluster name, which will also be used in the tag.
You currently cannot rename a cluster once it has been created.
Create cluster. When you’ve entered your other settings, create the cluster by clicking the Create Cluster button. It can take several minutes for cluster creation to finish.
Once your cluster is provisioned, use kubectl, the official Kubernetes command-line client, to manage the cluster. See How to Connect to a Digitalocean Kubernetes Cluster to get set up.