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SmoothGlue Core

Introduction​

The SmoothGlueTM Core represents the foundational components of the SmoothGlue platform. While it operates predominantly behind the scenes in both the Developer Build Environment (DBE) and Run Environments (REs), its significance cannot be understated. The Core ensures that every application, service, or system built atop the SmoothGlue platform is grounded in principles of resilience, scalability, reliability, and security ((rs)2).

Purpose​

Though not typically sold as a standalone product, the SmoothGlue Core serves a crucial role by offering:

  • A Unified Base: provides a standardized and consistent base, ensuring that irrespective of the varied tools or components chosen for the DBE or RE, the foundational elements remain consistent and robust
  • Backend Operations: manages essential backend operations, from network communication to security enforcement, while developers and users interact with tools and services in the DBE or RE
  • Integrations & Extensions: acts as the bedrock, making it easier to integrate additional tools or extend functionalities in the DBE or RE

Core Components​

Service Mesh​

  • Istio: facilitates reliable and secure microservice communication, ensuring seamless interaction between services and providing observability, traffic management, and security

Monitoring & Logging​

  • Prometheus: used for event monitoring and alerting
  • Grafana: provides a platform for real-time data analytics and monitoring
  • Loki: enables a multi-tenant log aggregation system
  • Kiali: offers observability into the service mesh, allowing for visualizations of data flow and service topology
  • Promtail/Logstash or Alloy: collects, parses, enriches, and sends logs to log aggregation system

Tracing​

  • Jaeger or Tempo: tools dedicated to tracing requests through various microservices, which are vital for debugging and performance optimization

Security & Compliance​

  • Kyverno: enforces policies across the Kubernetes clusters, ensuring compliance and security standards are met
  • Twistlock or Neuvector: guarantees container runtime security, safeguarding applications from potential threats
  • cert-manager: (optional component) dynamically issues and manages certificates to simplify operations

Cloud Integration​

  • Terraform: used for provisioning and managing infrastructure as code, compatible with multiple cloud platforms, including AWS

Conclusion​

The SmoothGlue Core may not be the most visible component of the SmoothGlue platform, but its presence is felt in every operation, deployment, and line of code that runs on it.