Deployment architecture

A server node hosts cluster management services (control plane) that perform important cluster operations such as workload orchestration, cluster state management, load balance incoming requests, etc. Kubernetes may also run a few of the UiPath products and shared components based on underlying resource availability.

An agent node is responsible for running the UiPath products and shared components only.

A specialized agent node runs special workloads like Task Mining analysis and Document Understanding pipelines that require GPU capability. However, the core Task Mining and Document Understanding services still run on the server or agent nodes. Specialized agent nodes do not host any of the UiPath product or shared components.

A single-node evaluation deployment here means a single-server node. This does not imply the deployment of the entire Automation Suite on a single machine. You may have to add additional agent or specialized agent nodes if the entire product suite cannot fit in a single server node, or if you want to run special tasks like Task Mining analysis and Document understanding pipelines, which require GPU capabilities.

A multi-node HA-ready production deployment involves 3 or more server nodes behind a load balancer. This is to ensure that, in the event of disaster, when any of the server nodes goes down, Automation suite is still available to perform critical business workflows. The number of agent nodes is optional and is based on actual usage.

In a multi-node setup, High Availability (HA) is enabled by default. However, the Redis-based in-memory cache used by cluster services is running on a single pod and represents a single point of failure. To mitigate the impact of a cache node failure or restart, you can purchase the High Availability Add-on (HAA), which enables redundant, multi-pod deployment of the cache.

For more details on how to enable HAA in a multi-node setup, see Enabling High Availability Add-on for the cluster.

An online deployment means Automation Suite requires access to the internet during both installation and runtime. All the UiPath® products and supporting libraries are hosted either in UiPath® registry or UiPath-trusted third party store.

You can restrict access to the internet with the help of either a restricted firewall or a proxy server, by blocking all the traffic over the internet other than what is required by Automation Suite. This type of setup is also known as semi-online deployment. For more details, see Configuring the firewall and Configuring the proxy server.

These types of deployments are easier, faster, and require fewer hardware resources to install and manage as compared to offline deployments.

An offline deployment (air-gapped) is a completely isolated setup without access to the internet. This kind of setup requires the installation of an additional registry to store all the UiPath® products' container images and binaries, which are shipped in the form of tarball.

The Automation Suite installer bundles both required and optional components.

The following table lists out these components:

You also need to bring a few external components, such as external load balancers, an SQL server, blob/file storage, key vaults, log sinks, and notification tools. Note that the suite provides some extension points.