Appian on Kubernetes allows self-managed customers to host Appian as a containerized application running on Kubernetes.

Appian runs using various components: application server, search server, data server, and others. On a typical Appian install you'd configure and run these components separately on a given machine. Appian on Kubernetes instead orchestrates running all the various components as Pods, light-weight container-based units that run on machine processes.

Appian on Kubernetes provides a great deal of resilience with pods. If one Appian component running on a pod goes down, Kubernetes will spin another up to quickly replace it. Replicas of pods can be scaled up to meet demand. For example, Appian on Kubernetes can be set up so that if the CPU load of the Apache web server component spikes due to traffic, it can automatically scale up replicas to meet the increased demand.

Appian on Kubernetes implements the operator pattern to orchestrate standing up and maintaining all the Appian components. You can tell Appian to start or stop, and the Appian operator will gracefully start or stop the Appian components in the correct order. The operator runs constantly to correct the state of components if any fall outside their specification. Appian also runs using a single configuration (custom resource definition (CRD)) for all the components. The resulting site is easy to self-host and configure.

For more on how Appian works with the Appian operator, see What is the Appian Operator?