Docs / Building infrastructure
Cluster capabilities
What SysJ can install on a cluster, what each one costs, and its limits.
You choose capabilities when you ask for a cluster. SysJ sizes the nodes for them, so choose them up front: changing node size later means a new cluster. Argo CD is installed on every cluster and is not a choice.
| Capability | What it installs | Know before choosing |
|---|---|---|
| GitOps delivery | Argo CD, which reconciles the cluster from your configuration repository. | Always installed. About seven pods. |
| Node autoscaling | Cluster Autoscaler. | Adds nodes when pods cannot be placed and removes them when idle, within your minimum and maximum. |
| Metrics and dashboards | Prometheus and Grafana. | About six pods. |
| Log collection | Loki and Grafana Alloy. | Keeps 14 days on a volume in the cluster. Losing the volume loses the logs. |
| Ingress routing | An ingress controller. | Creates a load balancer in your account, charged by the hour, and gives the cluster a public address. |
| Certificate management | cert-manager with Let’s Encrypt. | Needs ingress routing. Cannot issue wildcard certificates. |
| Admission policy | Kyverno. | Reports what does not match its rules; it does not block deployments. Read findings with kubectl get policyreport -A. |
| PostgreSQL | The CloudNativePG operator. | Installs no database by itself. Each database you create costs its own pods and storage. |
Adding and removing capabilities
Ask the assistant to add or remove a capability on an existing cluster. The plan shows no cloud changes and names the capability. When you approve, SysJ commits its files to your cluster configuration repository, or deletes them for a removal, and Argo CD on the cluster installs or removes it. Nothing runs in your cloud account, so the change is committed at once. SysJ does not check that it is running.
This needs write access to the cluster configuration repository. Without it, approving is refused and nothing changes; the files are on the cluster’s page for you to commit yourself.