Tile38 Helm Chart

Introduction

Tile38 is an ultra-fast, in-memory geospatial database with native geofencing capabilities. It is designed for real-time location-based applications and supports complex spatial queries with very low latency.

This Helm chart deploys Tile38 on Kubernetes and supports a leader–follower architecture to enable horizontal read scaling while keeping write consistency.

Architecture Overview

The chart deploys Tile38 using a single leader and zero or more followers:

• Leader

  • Handles all write operations
  • Acts as the source of truth
  • Can optionally persist data using a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC)

• Followers

  • Replicate data from the leader
  • Serve read-only traffic for horizontal read scaling
  • Can be enabled or disabled via values
  • Replica count is configurable

Followers automatically connect to the leader using Tile38's native replication (FOLLOW) mechanism.

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes 1.19+
• Helm 3.0+
• A working PersistentVolume provisioner (if persistence is enabled)
• Prometheus Operator (only if serviceMonitor.enabled=true)

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Installation and Quick Start

helm repo add tile38 https://1995parham.github.io/tile38-chart
helm repo update
helm install tile38 tile38/tile38

Post-installation

After installation, Helm prints connection instructions in the output of NOTES.txt.

Example port-forwarding:

kubectl port-forward svc/tile38-leader 9851:9851

You can then connect using:

tile38-cli -p 9851 ping

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Configuration

Configuration values follow the structure of values.yaml.

Image Parameters

Name	Description	Default
image.repository	Tile38 image repository	tile38/tile38
image.tag	Image tag	latest
image.pullPolicy	Image pull policy	IfNotPresent

Leader Parameters

Name	Description	Default
leader.config.*	Tile38 leader configuration	{}
leader.service.type	Service type	ClusterIP
leader.service.port	Service port	9851
leader.persistence.enabled	Enable persistence	false
leader.persistence.size	PVC size	8Gi
leader.persistence.storageClass	StorageClass name	""
leader.persistence.existingClaim	Use existing PVC	""
leader.resources.*	Resource requests/limits	{}
leader.extraFlags	Extra Tile38 flags	[]
leader.extraArgs	Extra container args	[]

Follower Parameters

Name	Description	Default
followers.enabled	Enable follower replicas	false
followers.replicaCount	Number of follower replicas	1
followers.config.follow_host	Leader service hostname	tile38-leader
followers.config.follow_port	Leader port	9851
followers.config.leaderauth	Leader auth password	""
followers.config.read_only	Enable read-only mode	true
followers.service.type	Service type	ClusterIP
followers.service.port	Service port	9851
followers.persistence.enabled	Enable persistence	false
followers.persistence.size	PVC size	8Gi
followers.resources.*	Resource requests/limits	{}

Global Parameters

Name	Description	Default
global.podSecurityContext	Pod-level security context	{}
global.securityContext	Container security context	{}
global.nodeSelector	Node selector	{}
global.tolerations	Tolerations	[]
global.affinity	Affinity rules	{}

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Optional Features

ServiceAccount

Name	Description	Default
serviceAccount.create	Create ServiceAccount	true
serviceAccount.annotations	ServiceAccount annotations	{}
serviceAccount.name	Custom ServiceAccount name	""

Useful for integrating with cloud IAM roles (e.g., IRSA on AWS).

Monitoring

Name	Description	Default
serviceMonitor.enabled	Enable ServiceMonitor	false

Requires Prometheus Operator.

Network Policy

Name	Description	Default
networkPolicy.enabled	Enable NetworkPolicy	false
networkPolicy.from	Allowed ingress sources	[]

Provides pod-level network isolation.

For advanced Tile38 configuration options, refer to: https://tile38.com/topics/configuration

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Operational Guidance

Persistence

• Leader uses a single PVC when persistence is enabled
• Followers use StatefulSet volumeClaimTemplates, creating one PVC per replica

Existing Claims

You can attach an existing PVC to the leader using:

leader:
  persistence:
    existingClaim: my-tile38-pvc

PVC Retention

If persistence.keepOnDelete=true, PVCs are retained after Helm uninstall.

Verification

Run the included tests:

helm test tile38

Tests include:

• Connectivity test
• Follower replication test
• Geospatial operation test
• Set/Get validation

Troubleshooting

• Validate connectivity:

tile38-cli ping

• Check replication status on followers:

tile38-cli server

Uninstalling the Chart

helm uninstall tile38

Note: PersistentVolumeClaims may remain depending on retention settings.

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License

This chart is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.