Concepts

Components: Plural

Plural deploys open-source third-party and proprietary first-party applications into clusters in your cloud environment. For open-source applications, Plural deploys a net new cluster; for proprietary applications, you can use a new cluster or an existing cluster for deployments.

Plural creates two types of clusters; a Management Cluster where the Plural control plane and CAPI controllers will reside, and Workload Clusters where main production/staging services are hosted. Plural will deploy open-source applications into a Management Cluster.

You can browse a list of all available open-source applications in the Plural Marketplace. Plural uses Terraform and Cluster API to create and manage the cluster, and uses an application’s Helm charts to deploy and update that application.

All the necessary configuration for a Management Cluster and its applications is stored in an installation repository in your Github or Gitlab account that’s created at the time of deployment.

Each application has a set of packages that encompasses the application’s Helm charts, Terraform, and Docker images necessary to install and manage that application. These packages are stored in a repository, and a user can install that repository and the set of packages within.

A bundle is a collection of packages that we automate the installation and configuration of that’s specific to a cloud provider. Stacks are collections of bundles (i.e., a one-shot installation of a set of applications with a guided configuration experience).

An installation is a specific deployment of an application onto a cluster. As an example, an organization can have multiple installations of the same application on different clusters.

Plural OIDC (OpenID Connect) is a form of SSO that enables Plural users to add an authentication layer on top of any apps they deploy with Plural. Instead of using the application's normal login screen, you are instead prompted to login with Plural. This login is connected to your login at app.plural.sh.

Environment

The Plural Cloud Shell is an in-browser alternative to running the Plural CLI that provides a hosted interactive terminal for you to deploy and manage clusters. All CLI commands will work in the Cloud Shell, and currently each Cloud Shell instance is tied to a single cluster and account.

The Plural CLI is a command line interface that can be used to run all Plural commands locally.

The Console is a web application created by Plural that runs within a cluster deployed by Plural. The Console serves as a control panel for all your applications.