Environments

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Key Concepts

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System-Level Definition

Environments are defined at the system level, ensuring consistency across all deployments within a system. This approach allows for standardized progression of releases through predefined stages.

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Environment Policies

Environment policies determine how deployments move from one environment’s resources to the next. These policies can include:

• Approval workflows
• Automated checks
• Rollback strategies
• Deployment windows

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Resource Filters

Each environment uses resource filters to dynamically determine which resources are associated with it. This feature allows for flexible and automatic assignment of resources to environments based on their characteristics.

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Dynamic Resource Association

The use of resource filters enables dynamic addition and removal of resources from environments. As a result:

1. Pipelines and deployments automatically run against newly added resources.
2. New software releases or upgrades are automatically applied to relevant resources.

This dynamic association ensures that your deployment process remains agile and responsive to changes in your infrastructure.

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Scalability for Distributed Systems

In large-scale distributed systems, you may have multiple production environments, each corresponding to a different deployment region. This setup allows for:

• Staggered rollouts across regions
• Region-specific configurations
• Improved fault isolation

For example, you might have production environments like prod-us-west, prod-us-east, prod-eu-central, each with its own set of resources and potentially different rollout schedules.

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Benefits of Using Environments

1. Structured Deployment Process: Clearly defined stages for software progression.
2. Consistency: Standardized environments across all deployments in a system.
3. Flexibility: Dynamic resource association allows for easy scaling and infrastructure changes.
4. Control: Environment policies provide fine-grained control over the deployment process.
5. Visibility: Clear overview of where software versions are deployed across your infrastructure.

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Example Environment Setup

A typical environment setup might include:

1. Development: For ongoing development work
2. QA: For quality assurance and testing
3. Staging: A pre-production environment mirroring production
4. Production: Multiple production environments for different regions

Each of these environments would have its own resource filters and policies, ensuring that software progresses through the pipeline in a controlled and consistent manner.

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Implementation in Ctrlplane

In Ctrlplane, environments are typically managed through the UI or API. The environment configuration includes:

1. Name and description
2. Resource filters
3. Associated policies
4. Any environment-specific variables or configurations

For example, creating an environment might involve setting up resource filters like:

environment: staging
region: us-west

This would automatically associate all resources with matching labels to the staging environment in the US West region.

By leveraging environments effectively in Ctrlplane, you can create a robust, scalable, and flexible deployment pipeline that adapts to your infrastructure needs while maintaining control and visibility over your software releases.