The nscale Plus Pack (abbreviated as nplus) provides tools and instructions to deploy the Ceyoniq Enterprise Information Management system nscale in a multi-tenant and highly available runtime environment in an automated manner. Additionally, the original components are enhanced to address common enterprise requirements.

nplus is a subscription. The subscriber gains access to all nplus resources, ensuring an easy way to protect their investment.

nplus does not include any nscale software, licenses or services, which are still to be obtained directly from Ceyoniq.

TL;DR

Use helm install to install an nplus Instance. Setting the domain name is optional, but nplus will automatically generate an ingress including a certificate for you.

If you have cert-manager installed, it will issue a certificate for you. If not, nplus will generate a self-signed certificate.

helm install myinstance \
    --set global.ingress.domain=myinstance.demo.nplus.cloud \
    --set global.ingress.issuer=nplus-issuer \
    nplus/nplus-instance

If you prefer to have ArgoCD perform the installation (instead of helm), you can use the ArgoCD chart to add the Argo Application:

helm install \
  --set global.ingress.domain=myinstance-argo.demo.nplus.cloud \
  --set global.ingress.issuer=nplus-issuer \
  myinstance-argo nplus/nplus-instance-argo

You can check the status of the instance using:

# kubectl get instance
NAME         HANDLER   VERSION    TENANT    STATUS
myinstance   Helm      9.1.1501   default   starting

And the component status with:

# kubectl get components
NAME                       INSTANCE     COMPONENT       VERSION    STATUS
myinstance-nstl            myinstance   nstl            9.1.1200   healthy
myinstance-rs              myinstance   rs              9.1.1300   healthy
myinstance-database        myinstance   database        15         healthy
myinstance-nappl           myinstance   nappl           9.1.1501   healthy
myinstance-web             myinstance   web             9.1.1500   healthy
myinstance-administrator   myinstance   administrator   9.1.1500   healthy

You can check the log files of the Application Layer for instance by typing:

# kubectl logs -l nplus/instance=myinstance,nplus/component=nappl

Uninstall myinstance using the following command:

helm uninstall myinstance

Concept

nplus includes helm charts for individual components and umbrella charts orchestrating these components. It can be installed multiple times within a Kubernetes cluster, once per namespace. This allows the use of multiple separate nplus environments in a single Kubernetes cluster. For example, different stages (DEV, QA, PROD, etc.) or tenants (A GmbH, B AG, C GbR, ...) could be placed in different namespaces.

With appropriate namespace separation, environments cannot see each other. However, it is optionally possible to create a separate namespace for central services, such as the nscale Rendition Server or the nscale Storage Layer, to be used across namespaces if desired.

Within a Kubernetes namespace, the nplus environment manages any number of instances, components and applications:

• An instance is a group of nscale-, nplus- and optionally open source- components, for example, an nscale Application Layer or a KeyCloak service. nplus includes separate, self-contained helm charts for each individual component, allowing a component to be deployed manually outside of an instance, although this is not recommended.

• Applications are units that optionally bring configurations and customizations into the instance. This could include creating a document area or installing a customer record management via a Generic Base App. Even smart apps can be packaged in applications. In the subscriber area, you find examples of applications, which are helm charts to transport your individual project specifics into an instance.

  If you have custom components, such as an API component for business applications, you can also package them into an application to install them with the suite.

For GitOps projects, all charts are also available as ArgoCD variants.

A central storage for the configuration data of individual components is provided for each nplus environment. This central storage is versioned using git. All config files from all applications of an installation are stored here.

Features

For operation in a Kubernetes cluster, nplus provides:

• Versioned helm charts for all nscale components for installation, updating, and uninstallation.

• The nscale components (Application Layer, Storage Layer, Web, CMIS, etc.) can be grouped into instances in any combination.

• Multiple instances can run in a Kubernetes namespace (e.g., Tenant1, Tenant2, and CentralServices).

• A namespace can represent either a tenant (e.g., Sales) or a stage (e.g., prod, qa, or *dev) if running multiple stages on one cluster.

• Umbrella charts for complex environments, including:

  • Optional LDAP directory with openLDAP.
  • Optional central Single Sign-On with Multi-Factor Authentication using KeyCloak.
  • Optional PostgreSQL database.
  • Optional S3 connection for the Storage Layer.
  • Optional Azure Blob connection for the Storage Layer.

• All charts are also available in an argoCD variant to integrate them into a GitOps deployment pipeline.

• Support for AppDynamics.

• Support for security tools, especially Illumio, Cilium, or Calico.

• Support for snc (for accessing SAP systems).

• Support for cert-manager for automatic TLS certificate generation.

• A separate application chart (nplus Application) for deploying and updating solutions.

• Usability of the classic nscale Administrator in a K8s DEV environment, eliminating the need for developers and administrators to adapt.

• Umbrella charts with tenant templates that can include and consolidate applications, solutions, and other external tools. Installing, uninstalling, or updating such tenants based on a template can then be done in a single line.

• Use of dedicated Application Layers for jobs, SAP, and users. For each use case, any number of replicas can be specified.

• Use of dedicated nscale Web instances for different departments, such as Department A and Department B. This allows loading different snippets or applying different SSO rules for each department.

Licensing

The subscription credentials for nplus include access to the nplus (container) registry, the nplus (helm) repository, the nplus online documentation, and the nplus license from 42i GmbH.

nscale must be obtained and licensed through the manufacturer (Ceyoniq Technology GmbH) as usual and is linked by nplus. You need access to the nscale Container Registry and a suitable license.xml for the instance.

Versioning

The chart version of the nplus and nplus-argocd charts corresponds to the nscale Application Layer version. They include references to the components approved for this nscale version. This ensures that you always get the official versions from Ceyoniq in the official combination. This behavior can be individually adjusted, for example, if a web client needs to be tested with the latest version of the previous month's NAPPL.

The (helm) app version corresponds to the helm git tag.

The chart version of the components (nappl, web, ...) corresponds to the respective image version to pin them exactly. All charts can be used individually but require a suitable runtime environment (nplus) to run. They do not work outside of nplus. Within an nplus environment, additional individual components can be easily started.

Subscriber Area

• The changelog is kept in the HISTORY.md.
• More information, all source code, and samples can be found at the official nplus repo.