»Overview
This topic describes the process of creating Consul clusters, connecting clusters to your infrastructure environment, and deploying clients. HCP Consul simplifies the process of creating secure, production-ready Consul servers. The following steps describe the general procedure:
»Create a Consul Cluster
A cluster in HCP is a set of Consul server agents that perform process-heavy functions, such as responding to queries and managing access control lists (ACL). All clusters exist in your HashiCorp virtual network (HVN), which is the parent entity for all Consul resources documentation for additional information). Refer to the Clusters topic for instructions on how to create clusters.
»Connect to Your Infrastucture Environment
After creating a Consul server cluster, the next step is to connect your HVN to your infrastructure environment. You can establish a connection using a peering connection or transit gateway attachment (AWS). You must also specify routes, which direct network traffic between the HVN and a target connection. Refer to the HashiCorp Virtual Network documentation for additional information.
»Deploy Consul Clients
The final step is to deploy a Consul client. Consul servers and clients are necessary for discovering and connecting services. Whereas servers are deployed in HCP and are fully managed by HashiCorp, Consul clients are deployed to the infrastructure environment where your services are located. Refer to the Clients topic for instructions on how to deploy clusters
Tutorials: Complete one of the following tutorials for a hands-on experience deploying Consul clients: