Platform infrastructure

Here you will find an overview of the architecture and the key components.

Overview

The diagram below provides an overview of the Connec2 platform infrastructure.

Details

The Connec2 platform is a cloud-native platform based on Kubernetes.
This makes it possible to host the platform with different providers (hosting-agnostic), as well as in a (local) private cloud.

Currently, the Connec2 platform is hosted with the following providers:

• TransIP (www.transip.nl) — ISO 27001:2013 certified
  • Amsterdam, Netherlands (current)
• Hetzner (www.hetzner.com) — ISO 27001:2013 certified
  • Falkenstein, Germany (currently for trial only)

Upon request, it is possible to host the Connec2 platform with other providers, regions, and availability zones.
This may involve additional costs.

At present, multiple Kubernetes clusters are running across the providers listed above.
All communication within the Kubernetes cluster is secured.

Firewall

The firewall blocks all incoming connections, except those defined in
DNS & Whitelisting

Gateway

A Layer 7 application gateway that provides functionality for dynamic routing, monitoring, resiliency, and security.
The application gateway routes HTTP requests to the appropriate microservices.

Microservices

The microservice architecture consists of multiple services:

• Identity Management
  • User management and authorization
• Mail Support
  • Sending emails to users
• Tenant Support
  • Tenant management and configuration
• Key Value Store
  • Content management
• Extended Reality
  • Low-latency exchange of events (e.g. virtual world coordinates, voice) between clients

XR Service

The XR (Extended Reality: Augmented + Virtual Reality) microservice differs from the other services.

XR traffic is sent directly to the XR service, bypassing the gateway, and is exchanged between clients with low latency.

The XR service consists of multiple XR containers per tenant/workspace and channels (component, voice, screenshare).
A multi-load balancer dynamically routes connections to the correct XR container and distributes load across the cluster.

NoSQL Database

A document-oriented NoSQL database.
Databases are isolated per tenant/workspace.

By default, the Connec2 platform is hosted as multi-tenant.
Hosting as single-tenant is available upon request, but involves additional costs.

Message Bus

The Message Bus is a messaging infrastructure that enables microservices to communicate with each other through a shared set of interfaces.

SMTP Server

The SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server is responsible for sending emails.
The Connec2 SMTP server is hosted by TransIP.