Create An Environment

Prerequisites

• Configuring Hub
• Importing an Image

Environments are how containers are networked together on Cycle. Containers are deployed into an environment, and all of the instances, regardless of what server, datacenter, or provider they are running on, will have a private, encrypted layer 2 network built between them automatically.

In other words, an environment can be thought of as a global VPC that spans all the nodes in the same cluster. Using this abstraction, networks between containers are built implicitly, simply by being part of the same environment.

For a much deeper dive on environments, refer to the Environments Platform Page

Create the Environment

From the left-hand navigation, select the Environments tab. In an existing hub, multiple environments may be visible, whereas in a new hub, no environments will exist. To add an environment, click the Create button at the top of the page to open the environment creation wizard.

• Name - Give the environment a name, this is a required field but the name itself has no bearing on how the environment is configured.
• Cluster - Select which infrastructure cluster to create this environment in. If only one cluster is configured, there will only be one option. If there are multiple options and uncertainty on which cluster to select, ask the hub's administrator.
• Description - Add a description to help others understand the purpose of this environment. This is optional but can be helpful.
• Advanced - The private networks in all environments on Cycle are IPv6, which means that all containers will be assigned only IPv6 IP addresses for container-to-container communication. To assign IPv4 addresses to the containers, enable Legacy Networking by selecting the checkbox.

To finalize the creation of the environment click Create Environment and Cycle will initialize the environment.