Ibexa DXP Helm Chart and Operator for Kubernetes and Cloud¶
What is the Ibexa Digital Experience Platform Helm Chart and Operator ?¶
The Ibexa Digital Experience Platform Helm Chart and Operator is a cloud native software-based smart agent build up on HELM and the Operator Framework and SDK that handles administration of Ibexa DXP.
Why is Ibexa DXP together with Kubernetes a good choice?¶
Kubernetes is the current standard in modern IT infrastructure and cloud providers. When you run Ibexa in Kubernetes the handling of the system will become easier and more powerful. Gain also other benefits. Some of them are listed further down.
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Service Architecture Overview¶
The Ibexa DXP operator and Ibexa DXP helm chart deploy a fully featured installation of the Ibexa DXP with all the dependant and required services.
What Ibexa DXP versions are supported?¶
The rule that apply is that we provide active support for the last 2 major Ibexa DXP releases. Which includes always the latest FT release, the last LTS release of the last major version and if exists the LTS release of the current major version.
The table below maps your Ibexa DXP version with the latest stable chart available for that version.
| Chart Version | Latest Version | Branch | Compatible Ibexa Major Version | End of Maintenance (EOM) | End of Life (EOL) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.x.x | main | main | ^5.0 Fast Track Release | prerelease | prerelease |
| 3.x.x | 3.6.0 | main | ^4.6 LTS | February 2027 | February 2029 |
| 3.3.x | 3.3.5 | 3.0 | 3.3 LTS | June 2024 | June 2026 |
| 2.x.x | 2.2.2 | 2.0 | < ^3.3 | March 2022 | March 2024 |
| 1.x.x | EOL | 1.0 | ^1.0 && ^2.0 | November 2018 | December 2022 |
| 0.x.x | EOL | 0.0 | Legacy ^5.0 && ^4.0 |
Key differences between Ibexa Cloud and Ibexa Digital Experience Platform Helm Chart and Operator¶
| Name | Description / Details | Ibexa Helm Chart and Operator | Ibexa Cloud |
|---|---|---|---|
| Autoscaling | Scales all services horizontal on demand. | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Public and private Cloud | Ibexa also run in a private cloud on own infrastructure | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Add custom services | Everything that runs on Kubernetes can run next to Ibexa in the cloud such as third party software like Iframely or Apache Tika or your own microservices | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Development Workspaces | Developers can work in a remote workspaces in the cloud with only a IDE like VS Code or PHPStorm needed. | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Ease of buying | Bundled in Ibexa subscription | ❌ | ✔️ |
| Federation | Support for a federated / global load balancing setup in two public cloud providers such as Google and Azure even across regions. | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Support Team | Support team by Ibexa versus own team | ❌ (your team or provider) | ✔️ ( Ibexa, your Ibexa partner or platform.sh ) |
Cloud Native Feature comparison and description¶
This table provides on overview of the main features.
| Name | Description / Details | Ibexa Helm Chart and Operator | Comparable feature exists in Ibexa Cloud |
|---|---|---|---|
| Autoscaling | Scales all services horizontal on demand. As an example of true horizontal scaling the operator is using Solr Cloud. Ibexa cloud runs a single instance. | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Failover | On service failure automatic self-healing recovery is place | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Content Cache | Integrated Varnish will handle caching of content | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Automatic Initial Installation | Will setup the latest of Ibexa DXP in minutes | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| 0 Downtime Deployments | Your site will stay available during deployment and rollback on failures | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Data Sync | Will update all data in test and development stages on demand. | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| CI | Example pipeline templates for CI for GitLab, GitHub or Tekton. |
✔️ | ❌ |
| CD | Example pipeline templates for CD for GitLab, GitHub or Tekton. |
✔️ | ❌ |
| Multi Cloud | Support for multiple public cloud providers such as Google and Azure. | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Federation | Support for a federated / global load balancing setup in two public cloud providers such as Google and Azure even across regions. ( Federation support is not included in the standard distribution ) | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Development Workspaces | Developers can work in a remote workspaces in the cloud with only a IDE like VS Code or PHPStorm needed. (The developer operator is not included in the standard distribution) | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Automatic Free Certificates | Each route is automatically secured with Let's Encrypt. Non public routes will have automatic PKI certificates from your CA. Certificates are also automatically renewed. | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| CI: Easy Integration in (Acceptance-)Test Pipelines | New instances with own routes can be created on the fly | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Logging | All Services send the foreground logs to the central log server | ✔️ | ✔️ / ❌ (partial support) |
| Automatic Background Tasks | Simple configuration and execution of cronjobs | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Default services | Services such as Solr Cloud, MySQL, Zookeeper, Redis Cluster, Varnish, SMTP, RabbitMQ and more are available out of the box | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Add custom services | Everything that runs on Kubernetes can run next to Ibexa in the cloud such as Iframely, Apache Tika or custom microservices | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Database Migrations | Integrated customizable schema / data migrations during deployment | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Software Updates | Continuous updates for the operator, helm chart and all dependent services like Solr Cloud, MySQL, Zookeeper, Redis Cluster, Varnish, SMTP, RabbitMQ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Optional extra features¶
This table provides on overview of the optional features.
| Name | Description / Details | Supported |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic Backups | Stores secure and encrypted backups according the 3-2-1 rule. At least 3 copies, on 2 different media and one copy in an offline media in a datacenter | ✔️ |
| Data Sync | Will update all data in test and development stages on demand. | ✔️ |
| Data Protection | A data masking tool can automatically obscure data only the fly for test and development stages for better support of privacy protection and GDPR compliance. | ✔️ |
This documentation for the Ibexa Digital Experience Platform Helm Chart and Operator is also available as a PDF Download
Price comparison¶
This is a sample price comparison between cloud provider and PaaS Providers. The information was created as an illustration on the 16.02.2023.
| Name | Description / Details | Supported | Price per Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform.sh | 16.4 vCPU / 24.5 GB RAM | ✔️ | 12 X € 880,00 = $ 10560,00 |
| Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) | 6 Nodes, 16 vCPU / 32 GB RAM + Helm Chart | ✔️ | 12 x $ 163,99 + 12 x $ 300 = $ 1.967,88 + $ 3.600.00 = $ 5.567,88 |
| Hetzer.com (DIY) | 3 Nodes, 24 vCPU / 48 GB RAM + Helm Chart | ✔️ | 12 x € 60,33 + 12 x € 300 = € 723,96 + € 3.600.00 = € 4.323,96 |