Deploying to Air-Gapped Environments with Replicated - Technical Walkthrough

Replicated has developed a comprehensive suite of tools to facilitate the distribution of enterprise software into air-gapped, self-hosted environments, providing seamless deployment experiences for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and their customers. The process involves integrating applications with the Replicated platform, where tools like the KOTS HelmChart custom resource in the vendor portal allow for the creation and management of air gap bundles. These bundles include necessary images and configurations, such as optional resources like Postgres, and are built by rendering Helm chart templates. End customers access these assets via the Replicated Download Portal and can choose to install them in an existing cluster or on a VM or bare metal server using the Replicated Embedded Cluster Installer. The process ensures images are pushed to an internal OCI registry and accessible through a proxy registry, enabling secure and efficient air gap installations.