Platform Overview
The meltcloud platform provides fully-managed Kubernetes Clusters on your premises, that can be managed like in the cloud – think GKE, AKS or EKS, but on your hardware.
It works as follows:
The management appliance – called Nest – is installed in your data center. It is available as a physical or virtual appliance and hosts the meltcloud API and the Kubernetes Control Planes.
The appliance integrates with your existing data center infrastructure:
- Connect the appliance to your switching fabric (Cisco, Arista, ...) or integrate it with your DDI solutions (Infoblox & others)
- Enroll your bare metal servers (HP, Dell, Lenovo – whatever you prefer) as Kubernetes Workers called Machines
- Hook up your existing Storage Arrays using CSI plugins.
Once set up, you can create and manage Kubernetes Clusters (Control Planes) using the Web Interface, the API or the meltcloud terraform provider.
The management appliance periodically retrieves package updates for all involved components (Kubernetes Control Planes, Workers & the Appliance itself) and gracefully rolls them out during configurable maintenance windows. Also, the components are monitored remotely.
Optionally, an airgapped design is available, if the remote connections are not desired.
Further reading:
- Explore the concepts behind Nest and Machines
- Check out the Reference Architecture for a more detailed picture