Cribl Validated Architectures (CVAs) methodology is designed to be approached in a specific sequence to map your requirements to the correct deployment pattern.

1. Define Your Requirements

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Before looking at architectures, document your technical constraints. You need to identify:

• Throughput: How much data are you moving?
• Data Gravity: Where does your data live?
• Boundaries: What are your security or isolation requirements?
• SLAs: What are your uptime and performance requirements?

For details, see Choosing an Architecture.

2. Choose a Topology Baseline

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Select the fundamental structure for your deployment. This defines where the Leader is placed and how Worker Groups are organized.

Before diving into the CVA Decision Tree familiarize yourself with the three primary baselines:

• Single-Instance: The Leader and Worker processes run on a single Node.
• Distributed (Single Worker Group): A dedicated Leader manages a single cluster of Worker Nodes.
• Distributed (Multi-Worker Group): A central Leader manages multiple Worker Groups.

For details, see Choose Your Foundation (Topology).

3. Add Optional Overlays

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Layer on Organize Your Workloads (Overlays) to meet specific functional needs. Common overlays include:

• High Availability (HA): Adding redundancy for the Leader.
• Security: Enforcing mutual TLS (mTLS) across the system.
• Data Integrity: Enabling persistent queues for critical streams.
• Compliance and governance: Regulations like GDPR may require regional isolation to ensure PII never leaves a specific geographic boundary.

4. Verify with the CVA Matrix

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Once you have identified your Topology and Overlays, use the CVA Matrix to move from a conceptual design to a technical reality. The Matrix serves as a referencethat identifies configurations Cribl has tested and documented for standard use cases. Using these patterns helps align your deployment with verified configurations.

The matrix ensures you account for:

• Scale: Total event volume and connection counts.
• Component Placement: Cloud-hosted vs. on-prem management.
• Sizing: How to partition your Worker Groups and Fleets effectively.

Optionally, review the CVA Design Guide to understand the relationships between topologies, overlays, and CVA.

The CVA Matrix is a guide based on standardized testing. Because every data environment has unique variables–such as Pipeline complexity, data cardinality, and network latency, you should use these specifications as a starting point for your own environment-specific testing and optimization.

5. Apply Operational Guardrails

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Finally, consult the CVA Operational Guardrails. These are the rules for your selected pattern, such as specific load balancer configurations or management strategies, that keep the environment stable.

This process enables you to identify the deployment archetype that fits your environment, workload size, and governance requirements.