This glossary is intended help you become familiar with the key Apollo concepts.
Agents deployed in Spoke Environments that are responsible for executing Plans issued by the Hub and reporting Plans and Entity state back to the Hub.
Learn more about Apollo Agents.
YAML-formatted overrides that modify the Product's default settings for a specific Entity.
Learn more about defining config overrides.
Conditions that Plans must satisfy before they can be executed by an agent. Apollo evaluates constraints to ensure that agents only execute Plans when it is safe and acceptable to do so.
Learn more about constraints.
A way to override the constraints imposed by Apollo and/or the Apollo Plan priority queue to execute a Plan as soon as possible. This can be useful during emergency situations like stability incidents.
Learn more about how to issue a command.
An instance of a specific Product in an Environment. Apollo supports Helm charts and Assets as Product types.
Learn more about Entities.
Defining which Entities should be installed and managed in an Environment, which Release Channels they are subscribed to, and other Entity or Environment-specific information.
An Entity that has Reported State and is declared in the Environment Settings. Apollo will issue Plans for managed Entities.
An Entity that has Reported State, but not declared in the Environment Settings. This Entity will show up in Apollo, but Apollo will not issue Plans for it.
Learn more about Environment settings.
A grouping of Entities deployed into the same infrastructure, such as a software platform composed of microservices running in a single Kubernetes cluster.
Learn more about Environments.
A YAML configuration files that contains Environment-level properties that need to be propagated to many Entities in the Environment.
Learn more about updating the Environment Config.
An Environment that manages one or more Spoke Environments. An Apollo Hub can manage itself or be managed by another Hub.
Learn more about the Hub and Spoke architecture.
A way to override Product dependencies constraints for an Entity.
Learn more about how to define ignored dependencies.
A tag for resources in Apollo, such as the type of infrastructure of an Environment, the component of an Entity in your application, or to denote that a Product Release has been scanned. Labels can be used as pure metadata, enable label-based filtering, define label requirements for Release promotion, or for custom automation.
Learn more about how to create and apply labels.
Time ranges during which Apollo is permitted to make changes such as upgrades, Release Channel promotion, and config changes to Entities on an Environment. A maintenance window declares the time zone of the window and a list of time ranges during which maintenance may occur.
There are two types of maintenance windows:
Learn more about Environment maintenance windows, Product maintenance windows, and Entity resolved maintenance windows.
A collection of Products that are frequently installed together in Environments, along with their respective configurations and settings.
Learn more about Modules.
A setting that determines if the contact team of the Entities in an Environment is the Environment or the Product contact team.
Learn more about operational responsibility.
A Product dependency that is not required by default but can be made required in specific Environments.
Learn more about how to configure optional dependencies.
Services running in each Hub that determine which Plans to issue to the Spoke Environment from all possible Plans, after ensuring all constraints are satisfied. The Orchestration Engine is also responsible for the Release promotion process for Product Releases.
Learn more about how the Orchestration Engine decides which Plan to issue.
Instructions from the Hub to agents in Spoke Environments for making a change, such as changing the configuration for an Entity or the Environment, setting a secret, and upgrading and downgrading Entities.
Learn more about Plans.
A unit of software functionality, comprised of versioned Product Releases which are deployed by Apollo. Each Product has its own settings, including promotion pipeline and maintenance windows, as well as an owning team and associated metadata.
Learn more about Products.
An inventory of all Products that have been published to an Apollo Hub. The catalog contains details for every Product Release, including existing dependencies, recall information, and the Release Channels to which it belongs.
Learn more about the Product catalog.
Ranges of Product Releases from a different Product a specific Release depends on.
Learn more about how to define Product dependencies.
A specific version of a Product, also known as a "Release." Releases have associated metadata, including a manifest, the Release Channels they belong to, and their recall status. Releases are promoted between Release Channels and deployed to Environments.
Learn more about Product Releases.
A YAML file embedded within each Product Release that provides metadata and constraints about it. This enables Apollo to install the Product Release in an Environment.
Learn more about the format of the Product Release manifest.
The requirements that a Product Release must satisfy before it can be promoted to a Release Channel.
Learn more about how to define promotion criteria.
A way to tell Apollo that there is a problem with one or more Product Releases. Apollo will not install recalled Releases in any Environments, and will move affected Entities to a different Release according to your defined roll-off strategy.
Learn more about recalling Releases.
Groupings of Product Releases based on common attributes such as stability and labels. Environments follow a Release Channel to receive Release upgrades. A Product Release can be present in multiple Release Channels and these Release Channels have no explicit hierarchy.
Learn more about Release Channels.
Adding a Release to a Release Channel, either manually or automatically though a Release promotion pipeline.
Learn more about Release promotion.
A sequence of Release Channels that a Release will be promoted through once the promotion criteria is met.
Learn more about how to set up a Release promotion pipeline.
The information that agents running in a given Environment report to their Spoke Control Plane about all the Entities they are responsible for.
Learn more about Reported State.
The Apollo services running in a Spoke Environment.
Learn more about the services in the Spoke Control Plane.
An Environment that is managed by a Hub. The Hub evaluates state and issues Plans for changes to the Spoke Environment. An agent executes these changes and reports state back to the Hub.
Learn more about the Hub and Spoke architecture.
Time range that prevents Apollo from issuing Plans. This time range supersedes maintenance windows. Suppression windows can be set for either an Entity or an Environment.
Learn more about how to create suppression windows.