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Engineering Architecture

Overview

This page documents the architecture of my engineering environment, including the homelab platform, container services, Kubernetes environment, monitoring capabilities, and cloud engineering projects.

The environment is designed around practical engineering principles:

  • Automation first
  • Infrastructure as Code
  • Documentation as Code
  • Security awareness
  • Operational visibility
  • Continuous improvement

Overall Platform Architecture

                    Internet
                       |
                       |
                Reverse Proxy
                       |
              Nginx Proxy Manager
                       |
        +--------------+--------------+
        |                             |
        |                             |
 Documentation Platform          Applications
        |                             |
     MkDocs                      Docker Services
        |                             |
        |
 Training Content
        |
 +------+------+------+------+ 
 |      |      |      |
Linux  Cloud  Azure Kubernetes

Docker Platform

Overview

The Docker platform provides the foundation for running self-hosted services.

Architecture:

Linux Host
    |
    |
 Docker Engine
    |
    +-- Monitoring Stack
    |
    +-- Documentation Platform
    |
    +-- Security Services
    |
    +-- Application Services

Technologies:

  • Docker
  • Docker Compose
  • Container networking
  • Persistent volumes
  • Reverse proxying

Kubernetes Platform

Overview

A k3s Kubernetes cluster is used to explore container orchestration and platform engineering.

Architecture:

                 Kubernetes Cluster

                 Control Plane
                      |
                      |
              +-------+-------+
              |               |
          Workloads       Services
              |
              |
        Ingress Controller
              |
              |
          Applications

Technologies:

  • k3s
  • Kubernetes
  • containerd
  • Traefik
  • MetalLB

Monitoring Architecture

Overview

Observability is provided through metrics, dashboards, logs, and security monitoring.

Architecture:

Servers
  |
  |
Node Exporter
  |
  |
Prometheus
  |
  |
Grafana Dashboards


Containers
  |
  |
Loki
  |
  |
Grafana Logs

Capabilities:

  • Infrastructure metrics
  • Application visibility
  • Alerting
  • Log analysis
  • Performance monitoring

Cloud Architecture

Overview

Cloud engineering projects use Infrastructure as Code principles.

Architecture:

Developer
    |
    |
Git Repository
    |
    |
Terraform
    |
    |
Cloud Infrastructure
    |
    |
Automation with Ansible

Technologies:

  • AWS
  • Terraform
  • Ansible
  • Git

Security Architecture

Security controls include:

  • Firewall management
  • CrowdSec threat detection
  • Container isolation
  • Access control
  • Monitoring alerts
  • Regular updates

Security approach:

Prevent
   |
Detect
   |
Monitor
   |
Improve

Engineering Practices

All projects follow a consistent lifecycle:

Design
  |
Build
  |
Document
  |
Automate
  |
Monitor
  |
Improve

Future Architecture Goals

Planned improvements:

  • Automated CI/CD pipelines
  • Cloud deployment pipelines
  • GitOps workflows
  • Kubernetes automation
  • Security automation
  • Disaster recovery testing

This architecture represents a practical engineering environment built to develop and demonstrate modern infrastructure skills.