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Architecture

Understand how Expanso's control plane and edge nodes work together.

System Overview​

Expanso Control Plane​

The central management interface hosted at cloud.expanso.io.

Responsibilities:

  • Pipeline creation and configuration
  • Node deployment and monitoring
  • Metrics aggregation and visualization
  • User authentication and authorization
  • Workspace management

You don't run this - it's a managed service provided by Expanso. Enterprise customers can run an on-prem orchestrator.

Edge Nodes​

The runtime that executes pipelines on your infrastructure.

Characteristics:

  • Lightweight single binary
  • Runs on Linux, macOS, Windows
  • Connects to your workspace over TLS, backed by the orchestrator control plane (Expanso Cloud or one you self-host)
  • Executes one or more pipelines
  • Reports metrics and health

Deployment locations:

  • Bare metal servers
  • Virtual machines
  • Docker containers
  • Kubernetes pods
  • IoT devices and gateways

Data Flow​

Where Data Lives​

Edge nodes:

  • Read from local data sources
  • Process data locally
  • Write to local or cloud destinations

Expanso Control Plane:

  • Stores pipeline configurations
  • Receives metrics and health data
  • Provides configuration testing and troubleshooting workflows

Production pipeline records flow from sources through your edge nodes to the configured destinations. Cloud receives the configuration and telemetry needed to manage those pipelines, along with requested logs. Samples submitted for transformation testing can also be sent to Cloud, as can configuration shared with the pipeline assistant. Use synthetic or redacted samples when appropriate.

Communication​

Node → Control Plane:

  • TLS-encrypted connection
  • Sends: metrics, health, logs
  • Receives: pipeline configs, commands

Data → Data:

  • Direct connection from source to destination
  • No intermediary (unless you configure one)
  • Full control over data routing

What's Next?​

👉 Core Concepts - Overview of key concepts

👉 Quick Start - Deploy your first pipeline

👉 Build Your First Pipeline - Step-by-step tutorial