# Architecture Overview

This article describes the overall architecture for Platform9 Edge Cloud.

Platform9 Edge Cloud consists of three major components that make up the product:

* **The Management Plane (Deployment Unit (DU))**: This is the main element that provides component management
* **Host Components**: These are cluster elements that make management of the Kubernetes cluster possible.
* **Utilities:** The CLI that aids in setting up the management Plane (only applicable to the air-gapped version)

The illustration below is an approximate overview of the configured architecture. It is divided into two main types of hardware:

* A management workstation
* The cluster machines

<figure><img src="/files/ivfkWAzo7beSDBjOrPnE" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

* **Management Machine**: The management workstation contains the management plane, the component which provides APIs for managing clusters, and the utilities used to manage the different nodes. Further details can be found on the [auto$](https://github.com/platform9/pcd-docs-gitbook/blob/main/PEC/management-plane/README.md) page.
* **Cluster Machines**: Typically, these machines are managed remotely and contain all the elements needed for the cluster creation. Further details on the cluster internals can be found on the [auto$](https://github.com/platform9/pcd-docs-gitbook/blob/main/PEC/host-internals/README.md) page.


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