Architecture & Design¶

Target Users¶

The primary users of Hop3 are small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with limited IT resources. They need IT infrastructure they can deploy and run with minimal complexity. The target user groups are:

Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs)¶

IT Administrators:

• Want a single portal for managing their IT infrastructure.
• Need to migrate existing services to new hardware or virtual machines with little downtime or complexity.
• Need reliable backup and restore for business continuity.

Business Owners and Managers:

• Want to reduce dependency on large upstream vendors and run their IT independently.
• Want to manage their IT infrastructure on a limited budget.

Managed Service Providers (MSPs)¶

Service Providers:

• Need a flexible, scalable platform for managing many client environments.
• Need a multi-tenant, SaaS-compatible solution they can deploy on-premise for clients or host in a data center.

Developers and DevOps Teams¶

Software Developers:

• Want to create and deploy applications on a consistent, reliable infrastructure.
• Want an easy-to-use platform for testing and deploying new software modules.

DevOps Engineers:

• Need support for DevOps practices such as continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD).
• Want built-in tools for automated testing, monitoring, and scaling of applications.

Educational Institutions¶

IT Departments in Schools and Universities:

• Need IT infrastructure they can manage at scale for administrative and academic workloads.
• Need secure, reliable ways to manage user accounts, data storage, and application deployment.

Non-profit Organizations¶

IT Volunteers and Staff:

• Need affordable IT solutions they can run without extensive technical expertise.
• Need secure, manageable infrastructure for data, applications, and communication services.

Goals and Key Features¶

Hop3 aims to give these users a platform that is reliable, secure, and efficient. The design goals follow from those needs:

Solve Sysadmin Daily Problems¶

• Easy Software Installation: Simplify software installation so that it requires little technical expertise.
• On-premise and Cloud Deployments: Support both on-premise and cloud deployments, so users can choose their environment.
• Migrate Software between Machines / Clusters: Move software and services between machines with minimal downtime.
• Centralized Management Portal: Provide one portal as the interface for the whole infrastructure.

Independence and Control¶

• Self-Hosting: Let users self-host their infrastructure for more control and less reliance on external providers.
• Software Supply Chain Independence: Keep the software supply chain independent of third-party dependencies.
• Simple, Reliable Upgrades: Keep upgrades simple so they cause minimal disruption and leave existing configurations working.
• Limit Upstream Dependency: Reduce reliance on specific upstream projects or vendors.

Cost Efficiency and Scalability¶

• Cost Efficiency: Run efficiently on low-cost hardware and entry-level virtual private servers.
• Scalability: Optimize for single servers and small clusters.

Security and Resilience¶

• Security: Treat security as a priority across the design: access control, data encryption, secure communications.
• Secure Software Supply Chain: Build the software supply chain from trusted sources and verify what comes from them.
• Data Backup and Restore: Provide backups that protect data integrity and restore quickly after a failure.