Architecture#

The MetalSoft is a hardware & software orchestration solution that enables cloud-like consumption of physical resources such as switches, servers and storages. It has been designed to handle both hyper-scale cloud data-centers but also highly distributed “edge” deployments. There is a central “controller” which registers user’s intent and determines the changes that need to happen within the infrastructure and there are many datacenter agents that will effect that change on the physical infrastructure.

MetalSoft offers the option to use controller as a service.

The agents are lightweight semi-independent pieces of software that act on behalf of the “core”. They “phone home” to create a connection to the core on which new configurations can be pushed down. They are able to survive disconnected from the core indefinitely. They update themselves if needed and need no manual maintenance and no firewall ports open. They will attempt to recover from a failed update and will keep reconnecting indefinitely in the event of a core or network failure. During the downtime there is no impact on the running infrastructure.