Packages

Big Bang includes many different packages that provide services to the ecosystem. Each of these packages is deployed by a Helm chart located in a repository under Big Bang’s Universe Group. The packages are broken up into several categories listed below. Sometimes packages are tightly coupled and grouped together in a stack. When using a stack, all packages in the stack will be deployed.

Technical Oversight Committee (TOC)

The Big Bang TOC supports users and contributors of the Big Bang ecosystem. If you would like to add, modify, or remove packages in Big Bang, we encourage you to attend the TOC to discuss your ideas. You can find details in the BBTOC repository, specifically in the Package Maintenance Tracks document.

Dependency Tree

Several of Big Bang’s packages have dependencies on other packages. A Dependency exists if the package would have a significant (or total) loss in functionality if the dependency was not present.

flowchart LR
  subgraph Core
  direction LR

    subgraph Group2
      style Group2 fill:transparent,stroke:transparent,color:transparent
      direction LR

      subgraph RS[Runtime Security]
        subgraph NV[Default]
          Neuvector[Neuvector]
        end
        subgraph CC[Alternative]
          style CC stroke-dasharray: 10 10
          Twistlock[Prisma Cloud Compute]
        end
      end

      subgraph PE[Policy Enforcement]
        subgraph KyvernoStack[Default]
        direction BT
          KyvernoReporter[Kyverno Reporter]
          Kyverno[Kyverno]
        end
        subgraph CA[Alternative]
          style CA stroke-dasharray: 10 10
          OPA[OPA Gatekeeper]
        end
      end

      %% PE Dependencies
      KyvernoReporter --> Kyverno

    end

    subgraph Group1
      style Group1 fill:transparent,stroke:transparent,color:transparent
      direction BT

      subgraph SM[Service Mesh]
        Kiali[Kiali]
        Istio[Istio]
      end

      subgraph DT[Distributed Tracing]
        Tempo[Tempo]
      end

      subgraph L[Logging]
        subgraph ALG[Default]
          Alloy[Alloy]
          Loki[Loki]
        end
        subgraph EFK[Alternative]
          style EFK stroke-dasharray: 10 10
          direction BT
          Kibana[Kibana]
          Fluentbit[Fluentbit]
          Elastic[Elastic]
        end
      end

      subgraph M[Monitoring]
        Grafana[Grafana]
        Prometheus[Prometheus]
      end

      %% Forces DT subgraph under SM subgraph
      DT ~~~ SM


      %% SM Dependencies
      Kiali --> Istio
      Kiali --> Prometheus
      Tempo --> Istio

      %% ALG Dependencies
      Alloy -.-> Prometheus
      Alloy --> Loki
      Alloy -.-> Tempo

      Grafana --> Prometheus
      Grafana -.-> Loki
      Grafana --> Tempo
      Grafana -.-> Alloy

      %% EFK Dependencies
      Kibana --> Elastic
      Fluentbit --> Elastic

    end
      Group1 ~~~ Group2
  end

flowchart BT
  subgraph AddOns
  direction BT

    subgraph Row2[ ]
      style Row2 fill:transparent,stroke:transparent
      direction LR

      subgraph DT[DevSecOps Tools]
      style DT stroke-dasharray: 10 10
        subgraph ContDeploy[CI/CD]
        direction BT
          GLRunners[GitLab Runners]
          GitLab
          ArgoCD
        end
        subgraph DT-1[ ]
        style DT-1 fill:transparent,stroke:transparent
        direction LR

          subgraph Scan[Vulnerability Scanning]
          direction BT
            Anchore
            Fortify
            Sonarqube
          end

          subgraph DT-2[ ]
          style DT-2 fill:transparent,stroke:transparent
          direction BT
            subgraph Repo[Repositories]
            direction BT
              Harbor
              Nexus[Nexus Repository]
            end
            subgraph UI[Dashboards and UIs]
              Backstage
            end
          end

        end
      end

      subgraph Collab[Collaboration]
        Mattermost
      end

      subgraph Storage[Storage & Backup]
      direction BT
        MinIO
        Velero
      end


    end

    subgraph Row1[ ]
      style Row1 fill:transparent,stroke:transparent
      direction BT

        subgraph Obs[Observability]
          Metrics[Metrics Server]
          Mimir
          Thanos
          Headlamp
        end

        subgraph SM[Secrets Management]
          Vault[Vault*]
          ESO[External Secrets]
        end

        subgraph Sec[SSO]
        direction LR
          Authservice
          Keycloak
        end

    Istio
    formattingNode[ ]:::invisible

    end

    %% Dependencies
    Authservice --> Istio
    GLRunners --> GitLab

    %% Row 1 Formatters
    Vault ~~~ formattingNode
    %%Mattermost ~~~ formattingNode
    Metrics ~~~ formattingNode

    %%Row 2 Formatters
    Row2 ~~~ Row1
    Collab ~~~ DT
    Storage ~~~ DT

  end

classDef invisible fill:transparent,stroke:transparent,color:transparent

Footnotes:

• Dotted lines in Core indicate a package that is not enabled by default
• The following were left off the chart to keep it simple
• Most packages depend on Istio for encrypted traffic and ingress to interfaces.
• Some packages have operators that are deployed prior to the package and manage the package’s state.

Core

Core packages make up the foundation of Big Bang. At least one of the supported stacks listed in each category must be enabled to be considered a Big Bang cluster. These packages are designed to provide administrative support for other packages.

Service Mesh

A service mesh is a dedicated infrastructure layer for making service-to-service communication safe, fast, and reliable. It provides fine-grained control and enforcement of network routing into, out of, and within the cluster. It can also supply end-to-end traffic encryption, authentication, and authorization.

Default	Stack	Package	Function	Repositories
X	Istio	Istio CRDs	CRDs	istio-crds
X	Istio	Istiod	Control Plane	istiod
X	Istio	Istio Gateway	Ingress Gateway	istio-gateway
	Istio	Istio CNI	Traffic Interception	istio-cni
X	Istio	Kiali	Management Console	kiali

Logging

A logging stack is a set of scalable tools that can aggregate logs from cluster services and provide real-time queries and analysis. Logging is typically comprised of three components: a forwarder, storage, and a visualizer.

Default	Stack	Package	Function	Repositories
X	ALG	Alloy	Forwarder	alloy
X	ALG	Loki	Storage	loki
	EFK	Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) Operator	Operator	eck-operator
	EFK	Elasticsearch / Kibana	Storage & Visualization	elasticsearch-kibana
	EFK	Fluentbit	Forwarder	fluentbit

ALG stack uses the Grafana package, deployed in monitoring, for visualization.

Policy Enforcement

Policy Enforcement is the ability to validate Kubernetes resources against compliance, security, and best-practice policies. If a resource violates a policy, the enforcement tool can deny access to the cluster, dynamically modify the resource to force compliance, or simply record the violation in an audit report. Usually, a reporting tool accompanies the engine to help with analyzing and visualizing policy violations.

Default	Stack	Package	Function	Repositories
	Gatekeeper	OPA Gatekeeper	Engine & Policies	policy
X	Kyverno	Kyverno	Engine	kyverno
X	Kyverno	Kyverno Policies	Policies	kyverno-policies
X	Kyverno	Kyverno Reporter	Reporting	kyverno-reporter

Monitoring

A monitoring stack is used to collect, visualize, and alert on time-series metrics from cluster resources. Metrics are quantitative measurements that provide insight into the cluster. Some examples of metrics include memory utilization, disk utilization, network latency, number of web queries, or number of database transactions.

Default	Stack	Package	Function	Repositories
X	Monitoring	Prometheus	Collection & Alerting	monitoring
X	Monitoring	Grafana	Visualization	monitoring

Distributed Tracing

Distributed tracing is a method of tracking application transactions as they flows through cluster services. It is a diagnosing technique to help characterize and troubleshoot problems from the user’s perspective.

Default	Package	Repositories
X	Tempo	tempo

Runtime Security

Runtime security is the active protection of containers running in the cluster. This type of tool includes scanning for vulnerabilities, checking compliance, detecting threats, and preventing intrusions. Many of these tools also include forensics and incident response features.

Default	Package	Repositories
X	Neuvector	neuvector
	Prisma Cloud Compute (AKA Twistlock)	twistlock

Addons

End users can extend Big Bang services beyond the core packages by enabling any of the many team-supported addon packages. Addons are supported by the Big Bang team and integrated with the core platform (Istio, Kyverno, Prometheus etc..) There are additional community-supported Big Bang packages that are not listed as addons.

Single Sign-On

Single sign-on tools include packages that provide centralized authentication and authorization. This includes identity providers, authentication proxies, and session management.

Package	Function	Repository
Authservice	Istio extension for Single Sign-On (SSO)	authservice
Keycloak	IdP, Identity Broker, AuthN/Z	keycloak

Secrets Management

Secrets management tools include packages that securely store, distribute, and rotate sensitive data such as passwords, API keys, and certificates. This includes encrypted storage, dynamic secrets generation, and access policies.

Package	Function	Repository
Vault	Sensitive Data Access Control	vault
External Secrets	Secrets management	external-secrets

Observability

Observability tools include packages for collecting, storing, and visualizing system telemetry. This includes metrics collection, long-term storage, dashboards, and monitoring interfaces for logs, metrics, and traces.

Package	Function	Repository
Metrics Server	Monitors pod CPU & memory utilization	metrics-server
Mimir	Long-term storage for Prometheus metrics	mimir
Headlamp	Cluster management dashboard	headlamp
Thanos	Multi-cluster Prometheus setup	thanos

Collaboration

Collaboration tools provide environments to help teams work together online. Chatting, video conferencing, file sharing, and whiteboards are all examples of collaboration tools.

Stack	Package	Function	Repository
Mattermost	Mattermost Operator	Operator	mattermost-operator
Mattermost	Mattermost	Chat	mattermost

Storage & Backup Utilities

For non-critical or on-prem deployments where data loss is an acceptable risk, these utilities offer a simple and low-cost solution for in-cluster data persistence (databases, object / blob storage, and caches). However, if scalability, availability, and resiliency (e.g. backup and restore) are requirements, it is generally advantageous to instead use a managed, cloud based offering.

Stack	Package	Function	Repository
MinIO	MinIO Operator	Operator	minio-operator
MinIO	MinIO	S3 Object Storage	minio
Velero	Velero	Cluster Backup & Restore	velero

DevSecOps Tools

DevSecOps tools include packages that programmers and security teams use to plan, author, test, debug, secure, deploy, and control code. This includes repositories, bug / feature tracking, pipelines, code analysis, security scanning, vulnerability assessment, automated tests, container registries, deployment orchestration, developer portals, and development environments.

Stack	Package	Function	Repository
GitLab	GitLab	Code repository, issue tracking, release planning, security and compliance scanning, pipelines, artifact repository, wiki	gitLab
GitLab	GitLab Runner	Executor for GitLab pipelines	gitlab-runner
ArgoCD	ArgoCD	Continuous Deployment	argocd
Anchore	Anchore	Vulnerability Scanner	anchore-enterprise
Fortify	Fortify	Security scanning tool	fortify
Sonarqube	Sonarqube	Static code analysis	sonarqube
Nexus	Nexus Repository Manager	Artifact repository	nexus
Harbor	Harbor	Container registry	harbor
Backstage	Backstage	Developer portal platform	backstage

Further Information

You can find some additional details about features supported by each package by visiting this document.