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Resilience Responsibilities by Deployment Mode

Upbound offers four deployment modes for Spaces, each with a different distribution of operational responsibilities between Upbound and the customer. Understanding these responsibilities is the first step toward designing a resilience architecture that matches your requirements.

This page compares the four deployment modes across the dimensions that matter most for resilience planning: infrastructure management, high availability configuration, disaster recovery capabilities, data residency, and support boundaries.

Deployment modes at a glance​

Deployment modeHosted byManaged by
Cloud SpacesUpboundUpbound
Dedicated SpacesUpboundUpbound
Managed SpacesCustomerUpbound
Self-Hosted SpacesCustomerCustomer

For a full description of each mode, see Deployment Modes.

Infrastructure management​

ResponsibilityCloud SpacesDedicated SpacesManaged SpacesSelf-Hosted Spaces
Kubernetes cluster provisioningUpboundUpboundUpboundCustomer
Node pool sizing and scalingUpboundUpboundUpboundCustomer
Kubernetes upgradesUpboundUpboundUpboundCustomer
etcd managementUpboundUpboundUpboundCustomer
Spaces software installationUpboundUpboundUpboundCustomer
Spaces software upgradesUpboundUpboundUpboundCustomer
TLS certificate rotationUpboundUpboundUpboundCustomer
Ingress and load balancer configurationUpboundUpboundUpboundCustomer

High availability​

CapabilityCloud SpacesDedicated SpacesManaged SpacesSelf-Hosted Spaces
Multi-zone control plane schedulingUpbound-managedUpbound-managedUpbound-managedCustomer-configured
Spaces router (Envoy) HAUpbound-managedUpbound-managedUpbound-managedCustomer-configured via configure-ha
Spaces controller HAUpbound-managedUpbound-managedUpbound-managedCustomer-configured via configure-ha
etcd quorum (3-node)Upbound-managedUpbound-managedUpbound-managedCustomer-configured via scaling-resources
Horizontal Pod Autoscaler for routerUpbound-managedUpbound-managedUpbound-managedCustomer-configured via configure-ha
PostgreSQL for Query APIUpbound-managedUpbound-managedUpbound-managedCustomer-configured via configure-ha
Node anti-affinity for critical podsUpbound-managedUpbound-managedUpbound-managedCustomer-configured via configure-ha

Disaster recovery capabilities​

CapabilityCloud SpacesDedicated SpacesManaged SpacesSelf-Hosted Spaces
Space Backups (SpaceBackupConfig, SpaceBackupSchedule, SpaceBackup)Not accessible to usersNot accessible to usersAvailable — Space admin managesAvailable — Space admin manages
Shared Backups (SharedBackupConfig, SharedBackupSchedule, SharedBackup)AvailableAvailableAvailableAvailable
Self-service restore from Space BackupNot availableNot availableAvailableAvailable
Self-service restore from Shared BackupAvailableAvailableAvailableAvailable
Restore to a different cluster or regionNot applicableNot applicableCustomer-managed (new cluster required)Customer-managed
Warm standby control planes (ObserveOnly pattern)Customer-configuredCustomer-configuredCustomer-configuredCustomer-configured
info

Space Backups cover the entire Space including all groups and control planes. Shared Backups cover individual control planes within a group. For most multi-tenant or production workloads, configure both.

Plan requirements​

Some disaster recovery capabilities require specific Upbound plan tiers.

CapabilityRequired plan
Shared BackupsEnterprise
Space Backups (Managed and Self-Hosted)Enterprise
Dedicated SpacesEnterprise

All pages in this resilience guide that apply to plan-restricted features indicate the requirement at the top of the page.

Data residency​

DimensionCloud SpacesDedicated SpacesManaged SpacesSelf-Hosted Spaces
Control plane data locationUpbound-chosen regionUpbound-chosen regionCustomer's cloud account, customer-chosen regionCustomer's cluster, customer-chosen location
Backup storage locationCustomer-configured object storageCustomer-configured object storageCustomer-configured object storageCustomer-configured object storage
etcd data locationUpbound-managedUpbound-managedCustomer's cloud accountCustomer's cluster
Network traffic pathThrough Upbound infrastructureThrough Upbound infrastructureCustomer's network, to Upbound ConsoleCustomer's network, to Upbound Console
tip

For workloads with strict data residency requirements (GDPR, FedRAMP, financial services regulations), Managed Spaces or Self-Hosted Spaces give you direct control over where compute and storage resources reside.

Resilience responsibilities summary​

The table below shows the overall split of resilience responsibility per deployment mode:

AreaCloud SpacesDedicated SpacesManaged SpacesSelf-Hosted Spaces
Infrastructure HAUpboundUpboundUpboundCustomer
Space-level DRUpbound (not exposed)Upbound (not exposed)SharedCustomer
Control plane DRCustomerCustomerCustomerCustomer
Observability setupCustomerCustomerCustomerCustomer
Alert responseCustomerCustomerCustomerCustomer

The key takeaway is that every deployment mode requires customers to take ownership of control plane-level disaster recovery and observability. Only the underlying Space infrastructure responsibility varies by mode.

Next steps​