Key Runner Concepts and Definitions
Runner’s Key Concepts and Definitions
-
Runners – Runners are execution environments responsible for running automated workflows. They receive actions from the Blink Controller and execute them using installed plugins.
-
Self-Hosted Runner – A Runner deployed and managed by you, typically on your own infrastructure (e.g., cloud VM, Kubernetes cluster). This gives you more control over network access, security, and scalability compared to Blink-hosted Runners.
-
Runner Instances – Individual installations of a Runner. Multiple instances can be deployed within the same Runner Group to distribute workloads and increase fault tolerance.
-
Load Distribution – Ensures incoming jobs are evenly spread across all active runners in a group, so no single machine gets overloaded while others sit idle.
-
Autoscaling – Dynamically adjusts the size of your runner fleet to match demand—spinning up (or tearing down) runner instances as load increases (or subsides).
-
Secret Manager – A secure storage service used to manage sensitive credentials (such as API keys, tokens, or passwords) that are injected into workflows at runtime without hardcoding them.
-
Object Storage – A storage system designed to manage and store large volumes of unstructured data (e.g., logs, output files) that Runners or workflows may generate or consume.
-
Kubernetes – An open-source container orchestration platform used to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications, including Blink Runners.
-
Docker – A platform that allows you to package applications and their dependencies into containers. Blink Runners can be deployed as Docker containers for portability and ease of setup.
-
CloudFormation – An AWS service that lets you define and provision cloud infrastructure using code. Blink provides CloudFormation templates to deploy and manage Self-Hosted Runners in AWS environments.