Project & Services Structure
Zerops organizes your infrastructure into three hierarchical levels: projects, services, and containers. This structure provides secure networking, resource isolation, and scalable application deployment.
Projects​
A project is the top-level entity in Zerops, functioning as a private network where services can communicate internally and share environment variables. Each project provides essential infrastructure including load balancing, routing, and container orchestration.
Key Project Features​
- Private Networking: All services within a project share a secure network
- Environment Variables: Services can access shared environment variables
- IPv6/IPv4 Addressing: Each project receives an IPv6 address, with optional IPv4 addressing
- Integrated Security: Built-in firewall and SSL certificate management
Consider your project strategy carefully. Create separate projects for different environments (dev/staging/prod) or consolidate related applications in a single project to optimize resources and simplify networking.
Project Core Options​
When you create a project, it requires a functioning core that includes logger and statistics services, HTTP routing with automatic SSL certificate management, and IP routing with integrated firewall.
Zerops offers two core types to match different needs and budgets:
Lightweight Core​
Single-container solution perfect for development projects and smaller production workloads. Includes project controller, L3 balancer, firewall, logger, statistics, and HTTP handling in one efficient package.
Development environments, low-traffic applications, personal projects, budget-conscious teams.
Serious Core​
Enterprise-grade infrastructure with separated core services across multiple containers for true redundancy and high availability.
Production applications, high-traffic websites, mission-critical business applications, teams requiring maximum uptime.
Features Comparison​
| Lightweight Core | Serious Core | |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | Single container (limited redundancy) | Multi-container (highly available) |
| SSL Termination | ||
| Automatic Certificate Generation | ||
| Proxy / Load Balancer | ||
| IPv6 Address | ||
| Build Time | 15 hours | 150 hours |
| Backup Space | 5 GB | 25 GB |
| Egress | 100 GB | 3 TB |
| Failover Protection | Limited | Comprehensive |
For detailed pricing information on both core types, visit our pricing page.
Project Core Upgrade​
You can upgrade from Lightweight Core to Serious Core for enhanced reliability and increased resources.
The core upgrade is a partially destructive process that will temporarily disrupt your project's operations. Plan upgrades during maintenance windows.
What happens during upgrade:
- All project logs and statistics will be lost (forwarded logs/statistics are not affected)
- Services will be network-unavailable during the process (avg. 35 seconds but can take longer)
- $10 project core fee will be charged upon upgrade
- Free project resources will reset to Serious Core limits
- Project IP addresses remain unchanged
If you encounter issues, contact support immediately and try running the process again.
Services​
Services encapsulate your containers and provide specific functionality within a project. A project can contain unlimited services, each with its own purpose.
Service types include:
- Runtimes, Linux Containers & Docker
- Databases, Search Engines & Messages Brokers
- Storages
- System services (needed for fully functioning project core)
Management options:
- Fully managed: Zerops handles scaling, routing, and repairs automatically (Databases and Storages)
- Partially managed: You maintain control over certain management aspects (Runtimes)
Services within a project communicate via internal hostnames and can share environment variables for seamless integration.
Containers​
Containers are the most granular level of the Zerops architecture. Each service consists of one or more containers that work together to deliver functionality.
Container deployment:
- Single containers for simple applications
- Multiple containers for High Availability (HA) mode (e.g. fully managed MariaDB service in HA mode uses 3 containers for the database cluster and 2 for proxies)
Container capabilities:
- Use predefined images or custom configurations
- Can be exposed publicly via Zerops subdomains, custom domains, or public ports
- Operate within service resource constraints with automatic scaling