Getting Started with Designs on Layer5 Documentation

Starting from scratch

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Step 1: Accessing Designer Mode 🔗

Upon entering Kanvas, seamlessly transition to the “Designer” mode by selecting the “Designer” tab from the main menu. This action dynamically switches to the Designer mode, initializing the necessary tools for design creation.

Example Analogy: Think of Designer mode as your blueprint studio. Just like architects use specific tools to design buildings, you, as a cloud architect, use Kanvas to design your cloud native applications.

Importing a Design

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Kanvas acts as a powerful bridge, enabling you to import your existing application and infrastructure configurations from a wide variety of standard formats. It transforms these configurations into visual, editable, deployable, and shareable designs. This guide covers how to import designs, the supported formats, and important considerations.

Accessing the Import Functionality 🔗

There are multiple ways to import a design.

You can drag a file from your local computer directly onto the Kanvas canvas to import a design.

Creating Relationships

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Benefits of Using Relationships 🔗

Improved Visibility: Clear visual representation of connections between components
Enhanced Design: Make informed decisions about component selection and placement
Automated Configuration: Relationship-driven actions automate configuration of components
Increased Flexibility: Use of selectors and operators provides flexibility in defining relationships
Better Understanding: Easily comprehend the overall structure and dependencies of your managed systems

What are Relationships 🔗

Relationships in Meshery characterize how components connect and interact with each other. They define the structure and dependencies between components in your designs, providing a clear representation of your infrastructure’s architecture. Relationships are highly expressive, capturing various forms of interaction between interconnected components regardless of their genealogy.

Working with Components

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Configuring Components 🔗

Once you’ve added components to your design in Kanvas, configuring them is a critical step in customizing and optimizing your cloud-native infrastructure. Configuring components allows you to fine-tune their behavior, set specific parameters, and ensure they meet the precise needs of your architecture.

Steps to Configure Components:

Select the Component: Click on the component on the Kanvas canvas that you want to configure. This action opens the Configuration Panel.