Choose an Installation Topology
Astro Private Cloud (APC) supports two primary layouts:
- Split planes: Deploy the control plane on a dedicated cluster, then add one or more data planes. This separation isolates management services from Airflow workloads, scales independently, and provides superior fault isolation between clusters.
- Unified mode: Run control plane and data plane components in one cluster using Unified Mode. Unified mode simplifies evaluation environments, but concentrates failures and resource usage.
If you want to run both the Control Plane and Data Plane Helm releases in the same cluster while keeping responsibilities separate, install the control plane first and then the data plane. This approach consumes more resources than unified mode, but preserves isolation. Installation Flow
- Review prerequisites: Ensure the target cluster meets the requirements listed in each install guide. These requirements include cloud-specific Kubernetes versions, Postgres access, TLS, and ingress controller.
- Plan DNS and certificates: Reserve hostnames, such as
app.<base-domain>, houston.<base-domain>, deployments.<base-domain>, etc, and request certificates that cover the necessary SANs. Split Deployments use separate certificates per plane.
- Prepare storage and secrets: Decide whether to use external Postgres, registry storage, and log destinations. Collect any Houston tokens or registry credentials required during installation.
- Install control plane services: Install the Control Plane to deploy Houston, Astro UI, and supporting components.
- Install runtime services: For split Deployments, deploy data planes with Install data plane and register them in Houston. For unified mode, follow the unified guide to add runtime components within the same cluster.
- Verify and harden: Confirm Commander heartbeat, Prometheus federation, and ingress connectivity. Configure RBAC, network policies, and backups appropriate for your topology.
Need Help?
If you are unsure which path to pick, start with the split-plane installation. You can always evaluate unified mode later or run both Helm releases in the same cluster if you need a stepping stone toward a dedicated control plane.
