1.0 Introduction
This article describes the key components of the Fortanix Confidential Computing Manager (CCM) when deployed in an on-premises environment.
2.0 Key Components
2.1 Helm
Helm (version 4.1 or later) is used to install and configure the Fortanix CCM deployment. It deploys the Fortanix Armor Kubernetes Operator and associated Kubernetes resources into the cluster.
2.2 Fortanix Armor Kubernetes Operator
The Fortanix Armor Kubernetes Operator is a controller that runs inside the Kubernetes cluster and manages the lifecycle of Fortanix CCM components.
It is responsible for:
Deploying Fortanix CCM platform components.
Managing upgrades.
Automating internal certificate management within the platform.
2.3 CCM Platform Components
The operator deploys and manages the following components:
UI Service – Provides the web interface for Fortanix CCM.
API/Backend Services – Handle platform logic and APIs.
Cassandra – Distributed database used by Fortanix CCM.
These components run as containers created from container images.
2.4 Container Images and Registry
All Fortanix CCM components are distributed as container images hosted in a Fortanix-managed container registry. During deployment:
The Kubernetes cluster pulls these images using registry credentials provided by Fortanix.
An image pull secret must be configured to enable access.
Customers may optionally mirror these images to an internal container registry, depending on their deployment and security requirements.
2.5 Kubernetes Cluster
The Kubernetes cluster provides the execution environment for Fortanix CCM and is responsible for running and managing all deployed components.
2.6 Supporting Components
The following components must be available in the cluster:
Ingress Controller – Manages ingress resources used to expose Fortanix CCM UI static assets externally.
cert-manager – Manages TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates.
SGX Device Plugin – Enables SGX (Software Guard Extensions) capabilities.
3.0 Where to go from here
The prerequisites for installing and deploying Fortanix Confidential Computing Manager (CCM) in a customer-managed Kubernetes environment (on-premises or cloud-hosted) are available here.