Deployment overview
Imply is available in a range of deployment options, and offers the possibility of matching self-hosted and Imply-managed components in a variety of ways.
Deployment options
The following table outlines deployment modes.
| Imply product | Cloud | On-prem | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | GCP | Azure | ||
| Imply Hybrid (formerly Imply Cloud) | Available | — | — | — |
| Imply Enterprise (formerly Imply Private) on Kubernetes | Basic | Enhanced | Basic | Basic |
| Imply Enterprise on Linux | Available | Available | Available | Available |
Choosing a deployment mode
In some cases, it may not be clear which production deployment mode you and your organization should use.
The choice largely depends on the systems and expertise that already exist in your organization. For example, it would be difficult to deploy and maintain Imply on Kubernetes if your organization doesn't already use Kubernetes and have expertise in Kubernetes use and administration.
The following decision tree provides a loose framework for choosing one of the options for a production deployment:
The following sections provide a closer look at the options.
Imply Hybrid
With Imply Hybrid, the control plane (which includes the Imply Hybrid Manager, and other control components) resides in Imply's VPC, while the data plane resides in your own VPC.
Your users access the Imply UIs through the control plane, which serves as a proxy for Pivot. Administrators perform administration functions, create clusters, and apply updates from the Imply Manager in the control plane.
Ingested data resides in the data plane, in this case, Amazon S3. Terms of the Amazon S3 Service Level Agreement apply to ingested data.
Imply Enterprise
If you want to maintain private control of both the data plane and control plane, you can use one of the self-hosted deployment options, or Imply Enterprise. Imply Enterprise provides distributions designed for easy installation and operation over Kubernetes, along with a binary distribution tar archive, which you can install and orchestrate using tools other than Kubernetes.
There are several ways to deploy a self-hosted Imply cluster. In general, however, the installation is optimized for Kubernetes, with tools specifically to facilitate Kubernetes-based deployment. These tools are divided into these categories:
- Basic: Imply provides a Helm chart for deployment. See Kubernetes for more information.
- Enhanced: Scripts further ease deployment by providing an interactive workflow for deploying Imply over Kubernetes and tighter integration with Kubernetes from the Manager UI.
Imply Enterprise for Kubernetes
If you want the Imply control plane and data plane to reside entirely on your own managed VPC or network, you can use the Imply Enterprise for Kubernetes deployment option.
Imply offers a Helm chart that you can use to install Imply on Kubernetes in Azure or AWS. For easiest installation, Imply provides an enhanced installation experience for Google Cloud Platform (GCP), in which most of the cloud set up is automated.
Imply Enterprise for Linux
Helm and GCP ease the process of deploying Imply across machines. However, if using another orchestration framework, or using Imply without orchestration, you can install Imply from tar archive files. See Imply Enterprise on Linux for more information.