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Create a Data Plane

A data plane is the infrastructure layer that hosts one or more data clusters. It provides shared databases, storage, vector search, and networking that individual clusters draw from.

Alien Hosted Customers

For Alien Hosted deployments, your data plane is pre-configured and managed by Alien. You do not need to follow this guide. If you need changes to your data plane configuration, contact us at contact@alien.club.

This guide is primarily for on-premise enterprise customers who deploy data clusters on their own Kubernetes infrastructure.

Prerequisites​

Before creating a data plane, ensure you have:

  • An Enterprise organization account (required for custom data planes)
  • A Kubernetes cluster (v1.25+) with sufficient capacity for the shared infrastructure
  • kubectl access to the target cluster
  • Helm v3 installed
  • Familiarity with Kubernetes operations (namespaces, deployments, secrets)

Step 1: Create the Data Plane in the UI​

  1. Navigate to Clusters in the sidebar, then open Resources.
  2. If you have enterprise access, click Add Data Plane in the top-right area.

Clusters page with Add Data Plane button

  1. Fill in the registration form:
FieldDescriptionExample
Data Plane NameA descriptive name for this infrastructure groupProduction EU-West
ProviderThe cloud or infrastructure providerScaleway, AWS EKS, GCP GKE, Azure AKS, On-Premise
Region(Optional) The geographic regioneu-west-1
Maximum ClustersThe maximum number of data clusters this plane can host100

  1. Click Create Data Plane.

  2. The platform generates an installation command containing a one-time registration token. You have two options:

    • Copy the command — Click the copy button to copy the full curl command to your clipboard.
    • Download the script — Download the installation script and run it manually with your token.
caution

The registration token is displayed only once. If you lose it, you can regenerate it from the data plane settings, but the old token becomes invalid.

Step 2: Run the Installation Command​

On the target machine or Kubernetes cluster, paste and run the installation command:

curl -sL https://get.alien.club/dataplane/install.sh | bash -s -- --token "dpk_reg_..." --yes

The script automatically handles everything:

  • Validates prerequisites (kubectl, Helm, cluster connectivity)
  • Installs ArgoCD if not already present
  • Deploys the complete data plane infrastructure (PostgreSQL, MinIO, Qdrant, Meilisearch, Argo Workflows, Istio)
  • Deploys the DataCluster Operator
  • Registers the data plane with the platform using the provided token
  • Establishes the Skupper mTLS tunnel for secure communication

The installation follows a strict dependency ordering via ArgoCD sync waves — each component is deployed in the correct sequence automatically.

info

The entire installation is managed through ArgoCD using the App of Apps pattern. After the initial install, all updates and configuration changes are delivered through GitOps automatically.

Step 3: Verify Connectivity​

After the installation completes, the operator registers with the platform and begins sending heartbeats. You can verify the connection from the UI:

  1. Navigate to Clusters > Resources in the sidebar.
  2. Your new data plane should appear in the list with a status indicator.
  3. The status transitions through these states:
StatusMeaning
PendingData plane created, waiting for operator to connect
ActiveOperator is connected and sending heartbeats

Data plane list showing active data planes

From the command line, you can also verify:

# Check operator logs for successful registration
kubectl logs -n data-cluster-operator deployment/data-cluster-operator --tail=50

Look for log messages indicating successful registration and heartbeat.

Configuring Infrastructure​

For advanced configuration of the shared infrastructure (database sizing, storage capacity, vector database resources), contact Alien support. Infrastructure sizing changes are applied through the operator and rolled out via ArgoCD without downtime.

What Happens Behind the Scenes​

When you create a data plane and deploy the operator, the following occurs automatically:

  1. The platform generates a registration token and (optionally) a Skupper access grant for networking.
  2. The operator exchanges the registration token for a permanent service API key.
  3. The operator redeems the Skupper access grant to establish an mTLS tunnel.
  4. The operator creates a DataPlane custom resource on the Kubernetes cluster.
  5. Heartbeats begin flowing every 60 seconds, reporting health and metrics.
  6. The data plane transitions to Active status.

The operator then waits for data cluster creation requests, which it handles through its automated provisioning sequence.

Next Steps​