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Infrastructure Overview

File: docs/overview-infrastructure.md Purpose: Simple overview of the two-component infrastructure Target Audience: All users and developers Last Updated: September 22, 2024

🏗️ Core Architecture​

Urbalurba Infrastructure has a simple two-component design that runs entirely on your local development machine:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│           Your Computer                     │
│                                             │
│  ┌──────────────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐  │
│  │ Provision Host   │  │ Kubernetes      │  │
│  │ Container        │─►│ Cluster         │  │
│  │                  │  │                 │  │
│  │ • kubectl        │  │ • Services      │  │
│  │ • ansible        │  │ • Storage       │  │
│  │ • scripts        │  │ • Networking    │  │
│  └──────────────────┘  └─────────────────┘  │
│                            ▲                │
│  ┌─────────────────────────┴──────────────┐ │
│  │        Web Browser                     │ │
│  │  http://service.localhost              │ │
│  └────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

1. Provision Host Container​

Purpose of the provision-host is to manage the kubernetes cluster. All sw for doing this is installed in the container so that there is no need to install anything on your computer.

A Docker container containing all management tools and scripts:

  • kubectl, helm, ansible - Infrastructure management tools
  • Cloud CLIs (az, aws, gcloud) - Cloud provider tools
  • Orchestration scripts - Automated service deployment
  • Configuration management - Secrets, manifests, playbooks

2. Kubernetes Cluster​

Purpose is to set up the same services as your cloud provider (Azure) so that you can develop locally.

A local Kubernetes cluster running on your machine:

  • Rancher Desktop (default) - Easy setup with GUI
  • Services - All applications run as Kubernetes workloads See overview-services.md for list of services and their Azure equivalents

🔄 How They Work Together​

  1. Management: All cluster operations happen from inside the provision-host container
  2. Deployment: Scripts in provision-host deploy services to the local Kubernetes cluster
  3. Access: Services are accessible via http://service-name.localhost URLs
  4. Development: Same environment works identically on any developer machine

🌐 Beyond Local Development​

For production or remote development, the same provision-host can manage:

  • Azure AKS clusters - Production Kubernetes in the cloud
  • Azure VMs with MicroK8s - Dedicated remote environments
  • Multi-cluster setups - Development, staging, production environments

The key advantage: same tools, same scripts, same processes whether running locally or in the cloud.

📚 Related Documentation​