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The Cycle Platform

Container Orchestration

Cycle offers a refreshing take on container orchestration, enabling teams to spend more time building and less time managing. Deploy applications seamlessly, gain enhanced visibility, and maintain effortless control, all while reducing complexity and technical debt.

Cycle Platform Diagram
The Cycle Impact with Container Orchestration

Key Differentiators

Working With The Platform

The Application Lifecycle with Cycle

The first step is building something! Once your application is ready to go, containerize it and push it to an image registry (like Docker Hub) or a git repo. Cycle can work with existing container images, or build them directly from your code.

Container Native Tooling

Utilize Docker, Buildpacks, Buildah, or any other tool that generates OCI-complaint container images. If your application can run on Linux, it can run on Cycle!

Import Or Build From Code

Cycle can import images from Docker Hub, any private Docker registry, and OCI-complaint registries such as AWS ECR. Cycle can even build your images directly from your source code by connecting your git repos.

Environments as Code

Have many containers that make up your application/service? Use Cycle's stack file to template out everything it needs to run. Cycle stacks are like Helm charts or Docker compose files that describe environments, networks, applications, and more.

Containers are deployed into environments - globally encrypted networks that spans one or more providers and/or on-prem infrastructure (read more). Utilize stacks and pipelines to fully automate your workflows, from git push to dev, staging, and beyond.

Transparent Networking

Cycle handles the plumbing for you. Deploy your containers into an environment to seamlessly build globe-spanning networks, with the platform managing ingress and discovery behind the scenes.

Zero-Downtime Rainbow Deployments

Keep as many versions of your application around as you want. Cycle integrates DNS with deployment tags, so switching between versions of your application is a breeze. (read more)

Automate It All With Pipelines

Build robust workflows that can be triggered with a simple POST request. Pipelines automate the 'continuous delivery' portion of CI/CD. Kick the process off from your CI system, and let Cycle build/import images, reimage or redeploy containers, and roll dev (or any other) environment forward to the bleeding edge.

Ready to go to prod? Kick off a production-geared pipeline and let the platform handle the rest.

Use Cycle's sensible defaults, or customize your containers to run exactly how you need. The platform comes with all the knobs and levers to fine tune your application's runtime and resources.

Maximize Infrastructure With Clusters

Achieve high-density infrastructure utilization with clusters. Environments in the same cluster utilize the same underlying infrastructure, but are completely isolated on a network level, achieving secure, isolated workloads without wasting resources. Need more density? Adjust the overcommit ratio to pack more onto every node.

Set Up Configurations and Secrets

Environment-level scoped variables give containers access to shared configurations and secrets. Go a step further and integrate with Cycle's Internal API for extremely secure access to sensitive data.

Manage Persistent Data

Cycle fully supports stateful workloads. Easily configure host volumes, set up remote access with SFTP, and automate offsite backups from a single pane of glass. Even sync data between instances with shared host directories.

Control Access

With fully customized role-based access controls and per-resource ACLs, you define who can see and change critical pieces of your system.

You own it, Cycle manages it. Deploy infrastructure via Cycle to your accounts at AWS, GCP, etc, or connect on-prem servers with Cycle's Infrastructure Abstraction Layer (IAL). Scale up and down automatically based on container-defined criteria.

Integrated Instance And Infrastructure Auto-Scaling

Define scale criteria on a per-container basis with CPU, memory, and network thresholds. When containers hit the thresholds, Cycle will scale container instances up until more infrastructure is needed. At that point, Cycle will pull from 'auto-scale groups' - predefined infrastructure that can be deployed during heavy load.

Dynamic Task-Based Workloads With Functions

Utilize function containers for on-demand processing as requests pour in. Function containers operate along-side your existing applications on the same network, giving you ultimate flexibility in how your applications are built. Pre-provision any number of instances so they start in a fraction of a second. (read more)

If you don't know about it, you can't fix it. Cycle natively collects detailed telemetry, so that when something goes wrong, you know exactly what happened. The platform also provides an integrated security suite, with 24/7 vigilance against bad actors.

Granular Telemetry Data

Cycle goes the extra mile on telemetry data. Of course basics like container CPU, memory, and networking are covered. However, the platform also collects telemetry on overall cluster health, per-environment network traffic, and with Cycle's native load balancer, detailed metrics on what URLs are being hit, where traffic is being routed, and tons more.

Custom Webhooks

Need more granular data? Instruct Cycle to send the raw data off-site using outbound webhooks for ultimate control. Cycle even gives the ability to mount the host /proc directory, so you can utilize third-party monitoring agents.

24/7 Security Monitoring

In addition to activity logs, custom ACLs and role-based access controls, Cycle monitors networks for suspicious activity. Unauthorized SSH attempts? High priority security alert. Someone attempting to brute-force their way into an SFTP-enabled volume? Cycle will lock it down temporarily to protect your data. All this and more are built in and enabled for you by default.

A Better Approach to Container Orchestration

One Platform With Everything Teams Need

Say goodbye to complexity and technical debt, and welcome a future where container orchestration is no longer an added stress.

The Cycle Platform: Container Orchestration Features

Application

  • Unified Config Management
  • Rainbow/Zero Downtime Deployments
  • Integrated Deployment Strategies
  • Stateful + Stateless Workloads
  • Auto Scaling
  • Continuous Deployment (CD)
  • Functions / Batch Processing
  • Customize Resource Constraints
  • Staggered Updates + Rollback
  • Integrated SSH
  • Automated Backups
  • Log Retention

Network

  • Automatic Per-Environment Networks
  • Integrated Load Balancing
  • Hosted DNS
  • Effortless Service Discovery
  • Automatic Neighbor Discovery
  • Dual Stack IPv4 / IPv6
  • Automatic TLS/SSL Certificates
  • Software Defined Networks

Security

  • Integrated Firewall
  • Automatic Network Encryption
  • Intrusion Detection
  • Security Audits
  • Management VPN
  • Audit Logs
Containers Shouldn't Be Complicated

Leave Kubernetes
in the Past

Far too many companies have been falsely convinced they have the same technical requirements as Google and Amazon. Instead of utilizing solutions that solve the issues that matter most, companies are adopting evergrowing technical stacks that delay progress more than accelerate it.

Instead of chasing hype and trying to solve an infinite number of problems, we at Cycle have doubled-down on building a solid foundation that addresses the problems that really matter.

All the tools needed to build platforms

Explore the Features of Cycle