Self-Scaling LLM Infrastructure Powered by Rancher

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Description

The Problem

Running LLMs can get expensive and complex pretty quickly.

Today there are typically two choices:

  1. Use cloud APIs like OpenAI or Anthropic. Easy to start with, but costs add up at scale.
  2. Self-host everything - set up Kubernetes, figure out GPU scheduling, handle scaling, manage model serving... it's a lot of work.

What if there was a middle ground?

What if infrastructure scaled itself instead of making you scale it?

Can we use existing Rancher capabilities like CAPI, autoscaling, and GitOps to make this simpler instead of building everything from scratch?

Project Repository: github.com/alexander-demicev/llmserverless


What This Project Does

A key feature is hybrid deployment: requests can be routed based on complexity or privacy needs. Simple or low-sensitivity queries can use public APIs (like OpenAI), while complex or private requests are handled in-house on local infrastructure. This flexibility allows balancing cost, privacy, and performance - using cloud for routine tasks and on-premises resources for sensitive or demanding workloads.

A complete, self-scaling LLM infrastructure that:

  • Scales to zero when idle (no idle costs)
  • Scales up automatically when requests come in
  • Adds more nodes when needed, removes them when demand drops
  • Runs on any infrastructure - laptop, bare metal, or cloud

Think of it as "serverless for LLMs" - focus on building, the infrastructure handles itself.

How It Works

A combination of open source tools working together:

Flow:

  • Users interact with OpenWebUI (chat interface)
  • Requests go to LiteLLM Gateway
  • LiteLLM routes requests to:
    • Ollama (Knative) for local model inference (auto-scales pods)
    • Or cloud APIs for fallback
  • Cluster Autoscaler scales nodes up/down as needed
  • Fleet keeps everything in sync via GitOps

Goals

  • Provide a middle ground between cloud APIs and self-hosted LLMs
  • Enable cost-efficient, privacy-preserving, and flexible LLM deployments
  • Make LLM infrastructure easy to deploy and manage (Helm chart, GitOps)
  • Support local development and production scaling
  • Experiment with hybrid routing, serverless scaling, and GitOps automation

Resources

Features

  • Packaged as a Helm chart: The entire stack is delivered as a Helm chart for easy deployment. See the project repository for setup instructions.
  • Scale to Zero: No requests? No pods. No pods? No nodes (well, minimum 1). LLM infrastructure costs nothing when idle.
  • Hybrid Routing: Simple requests can use public APIs, while complex or private queries are handled in-house, balancing cost and privacy.
  • GitOps Native: Everything is Fleet bundles.
  • Local Development Ready: Uses KIND + Docker provider for local dev. Same architecture that scales to production.

Tech Stack

  • Rancher 2.13 - Cluster management (Turtles is now built-in!)
  • Cluster API - Infrastructure as Kubernetes resources
  • Knative Serving - Serverless pod autoscaling
  • Ollama - Run LLMs locally
  • LiteLLM - Unified LLM API gateway
  • OpenWebUI - Chat interface
  • Fleet - GitOps deployment

What's Next

This is a hackweek project, but here are ideas for the future:

  • GPU node pools for production workloads
  • Cloud provider templates (AWS/Azure/GCP)
  • Smarter routing based on prompt complexity
  • Cost tracking dashboard
  • Response caching

Setup & Usage

For all setup and usage instructions, please refer to the project repository.

Why This Matters

LLMs are becoming a core part of many applications. But infrastructure options are still catching up.

This project explores a middle path:

  • Privacy - run models locally, keep data in-house
  • Cost efficiency - scale to zero, pay only for actual usage
  • Flexibility - mix local and cloud models based on needs
  • Simplicity - one command to deploy, GitOps to manage

It's an experiment in making LLM infrastructure more accessible and practical.


Updates

  • Update 1: Pushed some project prototype I had before along with changes needed to run it on most recent Rancher version
  • Update 2: Added multiple improvements for POC

Hackweek Results and Conclusion

Project Repository: github.com/alexander-demicev/llmserverless

The main conclusion is that it’s already possible to build something like this using the existing Rancher provisioning and management features. However, there are still a few questions and areas to improve for the future:

  • The POC is based on Kubeadm, it can and should be migrated to RKE2.
  • The SUSE AI stack wasn’t used for the sake of time efficiency, the goal was to assemble something that might currently be missing from it.
  • Cluster Autoscaler is getting support in Rancher, so the POC should be updated to use the autoscaler setup recommended by Rancher.
  • I’m not sure Knative is the best tool for self-scaling, maybe Keda would be a better alternative? I found Knative a bit complicated to configure and use, and it might be an overhead for the scope we have.

Looking for hackers with the skills:

rancher ai ll llm kubernetes

This project is part of:

Hack Week 25

Activity

  • about 1 month ago: pgonin liked this project.
  • about 1 month ago: ademicev0 liked this project.
  • about 1 month ago: ademicev0 added keyword "llm" to this project.
  • about 1 month ago: ademicev0 added keyword "kubernetes" to this project.
  • about 1 month ago: ademicev0 added keyword "rancher" to this project.
  • about 1 month ago: ademicev0 added keyword "ai" to this project.
  • about 1 month ago: ademicev0 added keyword "ll" to this project.
  • about 1 month ago: ademicev0 started this project.
  • about 1 month ago: ademicev0 originated this project.

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    Specifically, throw "Agentic Coders" some typical tasks in a complex, long-lived open-source project, such as:


    The Grunt Work: generate missing GoDocs, unit tests, and refactorings. Rebase PRs.

    The Complex Stuff: fix actual (historical) bugs and feature requests to see if they can traverse the complexity without (too much) human hand-holding.

    Hunting Down Gaps: find areas lacking in docs, areas of improvement in code, dependency bumps, and so on.


    If time allows, also experiment with Model Context Protocol (MCP) to give agents context on our specific build pipelines and CI/CD logs.

    Why?

    We know AI can write "Hello World." and also moderately complex programs from a green field. But can it rebase a 3-month-old PR with conflicts in rancher/rancher? I want to find the breaking point of current AI agents to determine if and how they can help us to reduce our technical debt, work faster and better. At the same time, find out about pitfalls and shortcomings.

    The CONCLUSION!!!

    A add-emoji State of the Union add-emoji document was compiled to summarize lessons learned this week. For more gory details, just read on the diary below! add-emoji


    Kubernetes-Based ML Lifecycle Automation by lmiranda

    Description

    This project aims to build a complete end-to-end Machine Learning pipeline running entirely on Kubernetes, using Go, and containerized ML components.

    The pipeline will automate the lifecycle of a machine learning model, including:

    • Data ingestion/collection
    • Model training as a Kubernetes Job
    • Model artifact storage in an S3-compatible registry (e.g. Minio)
    • A Go-based deployment controller that automatically deploys new model versions to Kubernetes using Rancher
    • A lightweight inference service that loads and serves the latest model
    • Monitoring of model performance and service health through Prometheus/Grafana

    The outcome is a working prototype of an MLOps workflow that demonstrates how AI workloads can be trained, versioned, deployed, and monitored using the Kubernetes ecosystem.

    Goals

    By the end of Hack Week, the project should:

    1. Produce a fully functional ML pipeline running on Kubernetes with:

      • Data collection job
      • Training job container
      • Storage and versioning of trained models
      • Automated deployment of new model versions
      • Model inference API service
      • Basic monitoring dashboards
    2. Showcase a Go-based deployment automation component, which scans the model registry and automatically generates & applies Kubernetes manifests for new model versions.

    3. Enable continuous improvement by making the system modular and extensible (e.g., additional models, metrics, autoscaling, or drift detection can be added later).

    4. Prepare a short demo explaining the end-to-end process and how new models flow through the system.

    Resources

    Project Repository

    Updates

    1. Training pipeline and datasets
    2. Inference Service py


    Cluster API Provider for Harvester by rcase

    Project Description

    The Cluster API "infrastructure provider" for Harvester, also named CAPHV, makes it possible to use Harvester with Cluster API. This enables people and organisations to create Kubernetes clusters running on VMs created by Harvester using a declarative spec.

    The project has been bootstrapped in HackWeek 23, and its code is available here.

    Work done in HackWeek 2023

    • Have a early working version of the provider available on Rancher Sandbox : *DONE *
    • Demonstrated the created cluster can be imported using Rancher Turtles: DONE
    • Stretch goal - demonstrate using the new provider with CAPRKE2: DONE and the templates are available on the repo

    DONE in HackWeek 24:

    DONE in 2025 (out of Hackweek)

    • Support of ClusterClass
    • Add to clusterctl community providers, you can add it directly with clusterctl
    • Testing on newer versions of Harvester v1.4.X and v1.5.X
    • Support for clusterctl generate cluster ...
    • Improve Status Conditions to reflect current state of Infrastructure
    • Improve CI (some bugs for release creation)

    Goals for HackWeek 2025

    • FIRST and FOREMOST, any topic is important to you
    • Add e2e testing
    • Certify the provider for Rancher Turtles
    • Add Machine pool labeling
    • Add PCI-e passthrough capabilities.
    • Other improvement suggestions are welcome!

    Thanks to @isim and Dominic Giebert for their contributions!

    Resources

    Looking for help from anyone interested in Cluster API (CAPI) or who wants to learn more about Harvester.

    This will be an infrastructure provider for Cluster API. Some background reading for the CAPI aspect:


    Rancher/k8s Trouble-Maker by tonyhansen

    Project Description

    When studying for my RHCSA, I found trouble-maker, which is a program that breaks a Linux OS and requires you to fix it. I want to create something similar for Rancher/k8s that can allow for troubleshooting an unknown environment.

    Goals for Hackweek 25

    • Update to modern Rancher and verify that existing tests still work
    • Change testing logic to populate secrets instead of requiring a secondary script
    • Add new tests

    Goals for Hackweek 24 (Complete)

    • Create a basic framework for creating Rancher/k8s cluster lab environments as needed for the Break/Fix
    • Create at least 5 modules that can be applied to the cluster and require troubleshooting

    Resources

    • https://github.com/celidon/rancher-troublemaker
    • https://github.com/rancher/terraform-provider-rancher2
    • https://github.com/rancher/tf-rancher-up
    • https://github.com/rancher/quickstart


    OpenPlatform Self-Service Portal by tmuntan1

    Description

    In SUSE IT, we developed an internal developer platform for our engineers using SUSE technologies such as RKE2, SUSE Virtualization, and Rancher. While it works well for our existing users, the onboarding process could be better.

    To improve our customer experience, I would like to build a self-service portal to make it easy for people to accomplish common actions. To get started, I would have the portal create Jira SD tickets for our customers to have better information in our tickets, but eventually I want to add automation to reduce our workload.

    Goals

    • Build a frontend website (Angular) that helps customers create Jira SD tickets.
    • Build a backend (Rust with Axum) for the backend, which would do all the hard work for the frontend.

    Resources (SUSE VPN only)

    • development site: https://ui-dev.openplatform.suse.com/login?returnUrl=%2Fopenplatform%2Fforms
    • https://gitlab.suse.de/itpe/core/open-platform/op-portal/backend
    • https://gitlab.suse.de/itpe/core/open-platform/op-portal/frontend