This page introduces basic Cribl concepts to provide context for Cribl as Code. For detailed information about these concepts and other Cribl resources and features, refer to the Cribl product documentation.

Control Plane and Management Plane ​

Cribl distinguishes in-deployment product configuration (the control plane) from administration (the management plane). The control plane is supported in every deployment model: Cribl.Cloud, hybrid, and on-prem. The management plane is supported only in Cribl.Cloud. It is not supported for deployments that do not use Cribl.Cloud, including standalone on-prem Leaders and other fully self-hosted topologies.

• Use the control plane to manage product resources, such as Worker Groups and Edge Fleets, Sources, Destinations, Pipelines, Cribl Search Datasets, and Cribl Lake storage.

• Use the management plane for orchestration and administrative tasks for Organizations, Workspaces, and billing in Cribl.Cloud.

For a complete description of Cribl architecture, see The Cribl Three-Plane Model.

Deployment Models (Cribl.Cloud, On-Prem, and Hybrid) ​

Your Cribl deployment model determines where the Leader runs and whether the underlying infrastructure is Cribl-managed (Cribl.Cloud), customer-managed (on-prem), or both (hybrid).

• In Cribl.Cloud deployments, Cribl hosts and operates the Leader and the Cribl-managed parts of your footprint. You use Organizations and Workspaces to separate environments, set up access control, and configure products.

• In on-prem (self-hosted) deployments, you install and operate Cribl on infrastructure that you control. You run the Leader, Workers, and Edge Nodes in environments that you operate.

• Hybrid deployments use a Cribl.Cloud Leader. Stream Workers and Edge Nodes run in a mix of Cribl-managed and customer-managed locations, such as your cloud accounts or data centers.

For details about the architecture for each deployment model, see Cribl.Cloud, on-prem, and hybrid.