Architecture Overview¶

This page provides a high-level overview of TAPPaaS architecture. For detailed technical specifications, see the Architecture Reference in the documentation section.

Architecture Philosophy¶

TAPPaaS is built on several key architectural principles:

Kubernetes-Native¶

TAPPaaS is designed as a true Kubernetes-native platform:

• Built on Kubernetes primitives - Uses standard Kubernetes resources under the hood
• Leverages Kubernetes capabilities - Takes advantage of scheduling, networking, and storage
• Extends Kubernetes thoughtfully - Adds abstractions without hiding Kubernetes
• Portable - Runs on any compliant Kubernetes cluster

Layered Abstraction¶

TAPPaaS provides multiple layers of abstraction:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│     Developer Interface Layer           │  ← Simple, intuitive interfaces
│  (CLI, API, Configuration)              │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│     Application Management Layer        │  ← TAPPaaS business logic
│  (Deployment, Scaling, Routing)         │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│     Kubernetes Orchestration Layer      │  ← Standard Kubernetes
│  (Pods, Services, Deployments, etc.)    │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│     Infrastructure Layer                │  ← Any Kubernetes cluster
│  (Compute, Network, Storage)            │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘

Modular Design¶

• Loosely coupled components enable independent development and deployment
• Well-defined interfaces between components
• Pluggable architecture allows extensibility
• Separation of concerns keeps code maintainable

Cloud-Native Patterns¶

TAPPaaS embraces cloud-native best practices:

• Declarative configuration - Desired state management
• Immutable infrastructure - Container-based deployments
• Observability - Built-in monitoring, logging, and tracing
• Resilience - Self-healing and fault tolerance

System Architecture¶

High-Level Component View¶

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        End Users                              │
│                  (Developers, Operators)                      │
└────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────┘
                     │
         ┌───────────┴───────────┐
         │                       │
    ┌────▼─────┐          ┌─────▼────┐
    │   CLI    │          │ Web UI   │
    │  Client  │          │ (Future) │
    └────┬─────┘          └─────┬────┘
         │                      │
         └──────────┬───────────┘
                    │
         ┌──────────▼──────────┐
         │    API Gateway      │ ← Authentication & routing
         └──────────┬──────────┘
                    │
    ┌───────────────┴───────────────┐
    │                               │
┌───▼────────────┐      ┌──────────▼─────────┐
│  Control Plane │      │   Data Plane       │
│   Components   │      │   (Applications)   │
└───┬────────────┘      └────────────────────┘
    │
    │  Manages
    │
┌───▼─────────────────────────────────────┐
│        Kubernetes Cluster               │
│  (Pods, Services, Volumes, etc.)        │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘

Core Components¶

Control Plane¶

The control plane manages the platform and orchestrates application lifecycle:

API Server¶

Purpose: Central API endpoint for all TAPPaaS operations

Responsibilities:

• Accept and validate requests from CLI and other clients
• Authenticate and authorize users
• Coordinate with other control plane components
• Maintain desired state

Technology:

• RESTful API design
• GraphQL endpoint (future)
• JWT-based authentication

Application Controller¶

Purpose: Manage application lifecycle and state

Responsibilities:

• Process application deployment requests
• Translate high-level app configurations to Kubernetes resources
• Monitor application health and status
• Handle updates and rollbacks
• Manage application scaling

Key Operations:

• Create and manage Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps
• Configure Ingress rules for routing
• Set up monitoring and logging
• Apply resource quotas and limits

Build System¶

Purpose: Convert source code into container images

Responsibilities:

• Detect application language and framework
• Execute build process (dependency installation, compilation, etc.)
• Create optimized container images
• Push images to container registry
• Cache build artifacts for faster subsequent builds

Capabilities:

• Buildpack support for popular languages
• Dockerfile support for custom builds
• Multi-stage build optimization
• Build caching

Routing & Ingress Manager¶

Purpose: Manage external and internal application routing

Responsibilities:

• Configure ingress controllers
• Manage DNS and domain mapping
• Handle SSL/TLS certificates
• Set up load balancing
• Enable service discovery

Features:

• Automatic HTTPS with Let's Encrypt
• Custom domain support
• Path-based routing
• Traffic splitting for canary deployments

Configuration & Secrets Manager¶

Purpose: Manage application configuration and sensitive data

Responsibilities:

• Store and version application configuration
• Securely manage secrets and credentials
• Inject configuration into applications
• Handle configuration updates

Security:

• Encryption at rest and in transit
• Secret rotation support
• Integration with external secret stores (future)

Data Plane¶

The data plane consists of the running applications managed by TAPPaaS:

Application Pods¶

Purpose: Run application workloads

Characteristics:

• Standard Kubernetes Pods
• Configured with appropriate resources
• Include sidecar containers for logging, metrics
• Automatic health checks
• Integrated with service mesh (optional)

Supporting Services¶

Purpose: Provide application dependencies and add-ons

Examples:

• Databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, etc.)
• Message queues
• Caching layers
• Background job processors

Management:

• Provisioned through TAPPaaS
• Bound to applications via service bindings
• Backed up and monitored

Platform Services¶

Infrastructure services supporting the control and data planes:

Monitoring & Observability¶

Components:

• Metrics Collection - Prometheus for time-series metrics
• Log Aggregation - Centralized logging system
• Distributed Tracing - Request tracking across services
• Alerting - Automated notifications for issues

Data Collected:

• Application performance metrics
• Resource utilization
• Error rates and logs
• Request traces

Container Registry¶

Purpose: Store and distribute container images

Features:

• Private registry for built images
• Image scanning for vulnerabilities
• Image garbage collection
• High availability and caching

Storage Layer¶

Purpose: Provide persistent storage for applications

Components:

• Persistent volume provisioning
• Backup and restore capabilities
• Storage class management
• Data encryption

How Components Interact¶

Deployment Flow¶

This is what happens when you deploy an application with TAPPaaS:

1. Developer → CLI: tappaas deploy my-app
   │
2. CLI → API Server: POST /applications/my-app
   │
3. API Server → Auth: Validate user & permissions
   │
4. API Server → Application Controller: Create/update application
   │
5. Application Controller:
   ├─→ Build System: Build container image from source
   │   └─→ Registry: Push built image
   │
   ├─→ Kubernetes API: Create/update resources
   │   ├─→ Deployment (manage Pods)
   │   ├─→ Service (networking)
   │   ├─→ ConfigMap (configuration)
   │   └─→ Secret (credentials)
   │
   └─→ Routing Manager: Configure ingress
       └─→ Ingress Controller: Route traffic to application
   │
6. Monitoring: Start collecting metrics and logs
   │
7. Application Controller → API Server: Update status
   │
8. API Server → CLI: Return deployment status
   │
9. CLI → Developer: Display deployment URL and status

Monitoring and Health Management¶

Continuous monitoring and self-healing:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│        Monitoring System                    │
│  (Collects metrics, logs, traces)           │
└────┬────────────────────────────────────────┘
     │
     │ Metrics & Events
     │
┌────▼────────────────────────────────────────┐
│    Application Controller                   │
│  (Monitors application health)              │
└────┬────────────────────────────────────────┘
     │
     │ Detects Issues
     │
     ├─→ Unhealthy Pod → Kubernetes → Restart Pod
     ├─→ High Load → Scale up replicas
     ├─→ Low Load → Scale down replicas
     └─→ Failed Deployment → Automatic rollback

Deployment Models¶

TAPPaaS supports various deployment configurations:

Single-Node Development¶

Use Case: Local development and testing

Characteristics:

• Minimal resource requirements
• Quick setup (minutes)
• Single control plane node
• Co-located data plane
• Suitable for old hardware

Ideal For:

• Learning TAPPaaS
• Local development
• CI/CD testing
• Proof of concepts

Multi-Node Production¶

Use Case: Production workloads

Characteristics:

• High availability control plane
• Separated control and data planes
• Multiple worker nodes
• Production-grade storage and networking
• Disaster recovery capabilities

Ideal For:

• Production applications
• Multi-team environments
• Mission-critical workloads
• Enterprise deployments

Multi-Cluster¶

Use Case: Large-scale or multi-region deployments

Characteristics:

• Multiple Kubernetes clusters
• Centralized management plane
• Cross-cluster application deployment
• Geographic distribution
• Disaster recovery across regions

Ideal For:

• Global applications
• Disaster recovery requirements
• Regulatory compliance (data residency)
• Very large scale

Security Architecture¶

Security is integrated throughout TAPPaaS:

Authentication & Authorization¶

• User Authentication - JWT tokens, OAuth integration
• Service Authentication - Service accounts and RBAC
• API Authorization - Role-based access control
• Namespace Isolation - Logical separation of applications

Network Security¶

• Network Policies - Restrict pod-to-pod communication
• Ingress TLS - Encrypted external traffic
• Service Mesh (optional) - mTLS for service-to-service communication
• Private Networking - Isolated network segments

Data Security¶

• Secrets Encryption - Encrypted at rest and in transit
• Image Scanning - Vulnerability detection in container images
• Audit Logging - Complete audit trail of operations
• Compliance - Support for compliance frameworks

Scalability & Performance¶

TAPPaaS is designed to scale:

Control Plane Scalability¶

• Stateless API servers - Scale horizontally
• Controller workload distribution - Multiple controller instances
• Efficient resource management - Minimal overhead
• Caching - Reduce load on Kubernetes API

Application Scalability¶

• Horizontal pod autoscaling - Automatic scaling based on metrics
• Vertical pod autoscaling - Adjust resource requests/limits
• Cluster autoscaling - Add/remove nodes based on demand
• Regional distribution - Deploy across availability zones

Performance Characteristics¶

• Fast deployments - Typical deployment < 2 minutes
• Efficient builds - Caching reduces build times by 10x
• Low latency - Minimal overhead for running applications
• High throughput - Support thousands of applications per cluster

Extensibility¶

TAPPaaS can be extended to meet specific needs:

Plugin System (Future)¶

• Custom buildpacks for specialized languages
• Integration plugins for external services
• Custom authentication providers
• Deployment hooks and workflows

Kubernetes CRDs¶

• Extend TAPPaaS with custom resources
• Define organizational-specific abstractions
• Integrate with existing Kubernetes tooling

API Integrations¶

• RESTful API for programmatic access
• Webhook support for event-driven automation
• CLI extensibility

Technology Stack¶

TAPPaaS is built with modern, proven technologies:

Core Technologies¶

• Kubernetes - Container orchestration (v1.26+)
• Go - Control plane implementation
• Container Runtime - containerd, Docker, or CRI-O
• Helm - Package management and installation

Supporting Technologies¶

• Prometheus - Metrics and monitoring
• Container Registry - Harbor or compatible registry
• Ingress Controller - NGINX, Traefik, or others
• Cert-Manager - Automatic TLS certificate management

Build System¶

• Cloud Native Buildpacks - Language detection and building
• Docker/Buildkit - Container image creation
• Registry - Image storage and distribution

Comparison with Alternatives¶

Understanding how TAPPaaS compares to other approaches:

TAPPaaS vs. Raw Kubernetes¶

TAPPaaS vs. Traditional PaaS¶

Next Steps¶

Now that you understand TAPPaaS architecture:

Additional Resources¶

• Vision & Problem Statement - Why TAPPaaS exists
• Introduction - Getting started with TAPPaaS concepts
• Core Components Reference - Detailed component documentation
• Security Model - Security architecture and practices