Architecture Overview
This article describes the overall architecture for Platform9 Self Managed Cloud Platform (SMCP).
Platform9 SMCP consists of three major components that make up the product:
- The Management Server: This is the main element that provides component management
- Host Components: These are cluster elements that make management of the Kubernetes cluster possible.
- Utilities: The CLI that aids in setting up the management server
The illustration below is an approximate overview of the configured architecture. It is divided into two main types of hardware:
- A Management Cluster
- The cluster machines
Management Cluster
One of the key prerequisite is a place to install different utilities and the management plane. A management station or deployment host assumes that responsibility. The management cluster is a machine where the management plane can run and also has the necessary connectivity from which users can access all the Kubernetes nodes. This host can be a small workstation like an Intel (Next Unit of Computing) NUC.
The Management Plane
The Platform9 Management Plane, is a unit of deployment that typically represents a region for a given customer. It provides APIs for managing PMK clusters. The management plane runs as a group of containerized services on a Kubernetes cluster. The Management plane is the component that contains various functions like the following:
- Authentication services
- Cluster management services
- Host management services
- Security and tunneling services
- Data services, including message queues and databases
- Monitoring services like Grafana or Prometheus
Further details can be found on the Management Plane Internals page.
Cluster Components
Each management service controls one or more Kubernetes clusters, each cluster contains not only the Kubernetes services but also the services/components needed to help manage the Kubernetes cluster itself and other add-ons. These include:
- Kubernetes components like the api-server, scheduler, etcd, kubelet etc.
- CNIs: Calico, Flannel, SRIOV etc.
- Monitoring: Prometheus
- Supporting services to manage and upgrade the Kubernetes cluster.
Further details on the cluster internals can be found on the Host Internals and Cluster Internals page.