Skip to main content
control-planemulti-regionnetworkingorchestrationhigh-availability
Status: DraftAuthor: Platform TeamCreated: Oct 10, 2025Updated: Nov 15, 2025

RFC-012: Prism Network Gateway (prism-netgw) - Multi-Region Control Plane

Abstract​

This RFC proposes prism-netgw, a distributed control plane for managing collections of Prism data gateway clusters across multiple cloud providers, regions, and on-premises environments. prism-netgw handles cluster registration, configuration synchronization, health monitoring, and cross-region routing while tolerating high latency and network partitions.

Motivation​

Problem Statement​

Organizations deploying Prism at scale face several challenges:

  1. Multi-Region Deployments: Prism gateways deployed across AWS, GCP, Azure, and on-prem
  2. Configuration Management: Keeping namespace configs, backend definitions, and policies synchronized
  3. Cross-Region Discovery: Applications need to discover nearest Prism gateway
  4. Health Monitoring: Centralized visibility into all Prism instances
  5. High Latency Tolerance: Cross-region communication experiences 100-500ms latency
  6. Network Partitions: Cloud VPCs, on-prem networks may have intermittent connectivity

Goals​

  • Cluster Management: Register, configure, and monitor Prism gateway clusters
  • Configuration Sync: Distribute namespace and backend configs across regions
  • Service Discovery: Enable clients to discover nearest healthy Prism gateway
  • Health Aggregation: Collect health and metrics from all clusters
  • Latency Tolerance: Operate correctly with 100-500ms cross-region latency
  • Partition Tolerance: Handle network partitions gracefully
  • Multi-Cloud: Support AWS, GCP, Azure, on-prem deployments

Non-Goals​

  • Not a data plane: prism-netgw does NOT proxy data requests (Prism gateways handle that)
  • Not a service mesh: Use dedicated service mesh (Istio, Linkerd) for data plane networking
  • Not a config database: Uses etcd/Consul for distributed storage

Architecture​

High-Level Design​

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ prism-netgw Control Plane │ │ (Raft consensus, multi-region) │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ ┌───────────────┼───────────────┐ │ │ │ ┌───────▼──────┐ ┌────▼─────┐ ┌──────▼──────┐ │ AWS Region │ │ GCP Zone │ │ On-Prem DC │ │ us-east-1 │ │ us-cent1 │ │ Seattle │ └──────────────┘ └──────────┘ └─────────────┘ │ │ │ ┌───────▼──────┐ ┌────▼─────┐ ┌──────▼──────┐ │ Prism Cluster│ │ Prism │ │ Prism │ │ (3 nodes) │ │ Cluster │ │ Cluster │ └──────────────┘ └──────────┘ └─────────────┘ │ │ │ ┌───────▼──────┐ ┌────▼─────┐ ┌──────▼──────┐ │ Backends │ │ Backends │ │ Backends │ │ (Postgres, │ │ (Kafka, │ │ (SQLite, │ │ Redis) │ │ NATS) │ │ Postgres) │ └──────────────┘ └──────────┘ └─────────────┘


### Components

graph TB subgraph "prism-netgw Control Plane" API[Control Plane API
:9980] Raft[Raft Consensus
Multi-region] Store[Distributed Store
etcd/Consul] Monitor[Health Monitor
Polling] Sync[Config Sync
Push/Pull] Discovery[Service Discovery
DNS/gRPC] end

subgraph "Prism Gateway Cluster (us-east-1)"
    Agent1[prism-agent<br/>:9981]
    Prism1[Prism Gateway 1]
    Prism2[Prism Gateway 2]
    Prism3[Prism Gateway 3]
end

subgraph "Prism Gateway Cluster (eu-west-1)"
    Agent2[prism-agent<br/>:9981]
    Prism4[Prism Gateway 4]
    Prism5[Prism Gateway 5]
end

API --> Raft
Raft --> Store
Monitor --> Agent1
Monitor --> Agent2
Sync --> Agent1
Sync --> Agent2
Agent1 --> Prism1
Agent1 --> Prism2
Agent1 --> Prism3
Agent2 --> Prism4
Agent2 --> Prism5
Discovery -.->|Returns nearest| Prism1
Discovery -.->|Returns nearest| Prism4

### Deployment Model

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Global Control Plane                         │
│                                                                 │
│  ┌──────────────┐    ┌──────────────┐    ┌──────────────┐    │
│  │ netgw-leader │───▶│  netgw-node2 │◀──▶│  netgw-node3 │    │
│  │  (us-east-1) │    │  (eu-west-1) │    │ (ap-south-1) │    │
│  └──────────────┘    └──────────────┘    └──────────────┘    │
│         │                    │                    │            │
│         │ Raft consensus     │                    │            │
│         └────────────────────┴────────────────────┘            │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Deployment Options:

  1. Multi-Region Active-Standby: 1 leader, N followers in different regions
  2. Multi-Region Active-Active: Raft quorum across regions (requires low latency between control plane nodes)
  3. Federated: Independent control planes per region, manual config sync

Core Concepts​

1. Cluster Registration​

Prism gateway clusters register with prism-netgw:

syntax = "proto3";

package prism.netgw.v1;

message RegisterClusterRequest {
  string cluster_id = 1;         // Unique cluster identifier (e.g., "aws-us-east-1-prod")
  string region = 2;              // Cloud region (e.g., "us-east-1")
  string cloud_provider = 3;      // "aws", "gcp", "azure", "on-prem"
  string vpc_id = 4;              // VPC or network identifier
  repeated string endpoints = 5;  // gRPC endpoints for Prism gateways
  map<string, string> labels = 6; // Arbitrary labels (e.g., "env": "prod")
}

message RegisterClusterResponse {
  string cluster_id = 1;
  int64 registration_version = 2;  // Version for optimistic concurrency
  google.protobuf.Timestamp expires_at = 3;  // TTL for heartbeat
}

service ControlPlaneService {
  rpc RegisterCluster(RegisterClusterRequest) returns (RegisterClusterResponse);
  rpc UnregisterCluster(UnregisterClusterRequest) returns (UnregisterClusterResponse);
  rpc Heartbeat(HeartbeatRequest) returns (HeartbeatResponse);
}

2. Configuration Synchronization​

Problem: Namespace and backend configs must be consistent across all clusters.

Solution: Version-controlled config distribution with eventual consistency.

message SyncConfigRequest {
  string cluster_id = 1;
  int64 current_version = 2;  // Cluster's current config version
}

message SyncConfigResponse {
  int64 latest_version = 1;
  repeated NamespaceConfig namespaces = 2;
  repeated BackendConfig backends = 3;
  repeated Policy policies = 4;

  // Incremental updates if current_version is recent
  bool is_incremental = 10;
  repeated ConfigChange changes = 11;  // Only deltas since current_version
}

message ConfigChange {
  enum ChangeType {
    ADDED = 0;
    MODIFIED = 1;
    DELETED = 2;
  }

  ChangeType type = 1;
  string resource_type = 2;  // "namespace", "backend", "policy"
  string resource_id = 3;
  bytes resource_data = 4;   // Protobuf-encoded resource
}

Push Model (preferred): prism-netgw → Watch(config_version) → prism-agent ← ConfigUpdate stream ←


**Pull Model** (fallback for high latency):
prism-agent   →  SyncConfig(current_version)  →  prism-netgw
              ←  SyncConfigResponse            ←

3. Health Monitoring​

Hierarchical Health Model:

Global Health (prism-netgw) ├── Cluster Health (per region) │ ├── Gateway Health (per Prism instance) │ │ ├── Process Health (alive, responsive) │ │ ├── Backend Health (Postgres, Kafka, etc.) │ │ └── Namespace Health (operational state) │ └── Network Health (connectivity, latency) └── Control Plane Health (netgw nodes)

message ReportHealthRequest { string cluster_id = 1; google.protobuf.Timestamp timestamp = 2;

repeated GatewayHealth gateways = 3; repeated BackendHealth backends = 4; repeated NamespaceHealth namespaces = 5;

NetworkMetrics network = 6; // Latency, packet loss, etc. }

message GatewayHealth { string gateway_id = 1; HealthStatus status = 2; // HEALTHY, DEGRADED, UNHEALTHY int64 active_sessions = 3; int64 requests_per_second = 4; double cpu_percent = 5; double memory_mb = 6; }

message BackendHealth { string backend_type = 1; // "postgres", "kafka", etc. HealthStatus status = 2; double latency_ms = 3; string error_message = 4; }


### 4. Service Discovery

**Goal**: Clients discover nearest healthy Prism gateway.

message DiscoverGatewaysRequest { string namespace = 1; // Filter by namespace support string client_location = 2; // "us-east-1", "eu-west-1", etc. int32 max_results = 3; // Limit number of results }

message DiscoverGatewaysResponse { repeated Gateway gateways = 1; }

message Gateway { string gateway_id = 1; string cluster_id = 2; repeated string endpoints = 3; string region = 4; double latency_ms = 5; // Estimated latency from client_location HealthStatus health = 6; int32 load_score = 7; // 0-100 (lower is better) }


**DNS-based discovery** (alternative):

Round-robin DNS for Prism gateways

dig prism.example.com

→ 10.0.1.10 (us-east-1)

→ 10.0.2.20 (eu-west-1)

Geo-DNS for nearest gateway

dig prism.example.com

→ 10.0.1.10 (us-east-1) [if client in North America]

→ 10.0.2.20 (eu-west-1) [if client in Europe]


### 5. Cross-Region Routing

**Use Case**: Application in `us-east-1` needs to access namespace hosted in `eu-west-1`.

**Options**:

1. **Direct Routing**: Client connects to remote gateway (simple, higher latency)
2. **Gateway-to-Gateway Forwarding**: Local gateway proxies to remote gateway (transparent)
3. **Data Replication**: Namespace replicated across regions (lowest latency, eventual consistency)

message RouteRequest { string namespace = 1; string client_region = 2; }

message RouteResponse { enum RoutingStrategy { DIRECT = 0; // Client connects directly to remote gateway PROXY = 1; // Local gateway proxies to remote LOCAL_REPLICA = 2; // Use local replica }

RoutingStrategy strategy = 1; string target_gateway = 2; repeated string fallback_gateways = 3; }


## Latency and Partition Tolerance

### Handling High Latency (100-500ms)

**Strategies**:

1. **Async Configuration Push**: Don't block on config sync

prism-netgw: Config updated (version 123) → Async push to all clusters (fire-and-forget) → Eventually consistent (all clusters converge to version 123)


2. **Heartbeat with Jitter**: Randomize heartbeat intervals to avoid thundering herd

let heartbeat_interval = Duration::from_secs(30); let jitter = Duration::from_secs(rand::thread_rng().gen_range(0..10)); sleep(heartbeat_interval + jitter).await;


3. **Batch Updates**: Accumulate config changes and push in batches

Instead of: 10 individual namespace updates (10 round trips) Do: 1 batch with 10 namespace updates (1 round trip)


4. **Caching**: Prism clusters cache config locally (survive netgw downtime)

prism-agent: - Fetches config from netgw periodically - Caches config on disk - Uses cached config if netgw unavailable


### Handling Network Partitions

**CAP Theorem**: prism-netgw favors **Availability + Partition Tolerance** over **Consistency**.

**Scenario**: `eu-west-1` cluster loses connectivity to control plane.

**Behavior**:
1. **Local Operation**: Cluster continues serving requests using cached config
2. **Config Staleness**: Config may be stale (eventual consistency acceptable)
3. **Heartbeat Failure**: Cluster marked as "Unknown" in control plane
4. **Reconnection**: When partition heals, cluster syncs latest config

┌──────────────┐                ┌──────────────┐
│  prism-netgw │ ─── X ────────▶│ eu-west-1    │
│  (leader)    │                 │  (isolated)  │
└──────────────┘                 └──────────────┘
   │                                │
   │ Config version: 150            │ Config version: 147 (cached)
   │ Cluster status: UNKNOWN        │ Status: OPERATIONAL (degraded)
   │                                │
   │ ──────────────────────────────▶│ (partition heals)
   │ SyncConfig(current_version=147)│
   │ ◀──────────────────────────────│ Incremental updates: 148-150

Split-Brain Prevention​

Problem: Network partition causes two control plane nodes to both claim leadership.

Solution: Raft consensus with quorum.

Cluster: 5 netgw nodes (us-east-1, us-west-2, eu-west-1, ap-south-1, ap-northeast-1) Quorum: 3 nodes

Partition scenario: Group A: us-east-1, us-west-2, eu-west-1 (3 nodes, HAS QUORUM) → continues as leader Group B: ap-south-1, ap-northeast-1 (2 nodes, NO QUORUM) → becomes followers

Result: Only Group A can make config changes (split-brain prevented)


## API Specification

### gRPC Service Definition

syntax = "proto3";

package prism.netgw.v1;

import "google/protobuf/timestamp.proto"; import "google/protobuf/duration.proto";

service ControlPlaneService { // Cluster Management rpc RegisterCluster(RegisterClusterRequest) returns (RegisterClusterResponse); rpc UnregisterCluster(UnregisterClusterRequest) returns (UnregisterClusterResponse); rpc Heartbeat(HeartbeatRequest) returns (HeartbeatResponse); rpc ListClusters(ListClustersRequest) returns (ListClustersResponse);

// Configuration Sync rpc SyncConfig(SyncConfigRequest) returns (SyncConfigResponse); rpc WatchConfig(WatchConfigRequest) returns (stream ConfigUpdate); // Server streaming

// Health Monitoring rpc ReportHealth(ReportHealthRequest) returns (ReportHealthResponse); rpc GetClusterHealth(GetClusterHealthRequest) returns (GetClusterHealthResponse); rpc GetGlobalHealth(GetGlobalHealthRequest) returns (GetGlobalHealthResponse);

// Service Discovery rpc DiscoverGateways(DiscoverGatewaysRequest) returns (DiscoverGatewaysResponse);

// Cross-Region Routing rpc RouteRequest(RouteRequest) returns (RouteResponse);

// Metrics rpc GetMetrics(GetMetricsRequest) returns (GetMetricsResponse); }


## Deployment

### Kubernetes Deployment (Multi-Region)

Deploy netgw control plane in multiple regions

apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: StatefulSet metadata: name: prism-netgw namespace: prism-system spec: replicas: 3 # Raft quorum template: spec: containers: - name: netgw image: prism/netgw:latest ports: - containerPort: 9980 name: grpc - containerPort: 9981 name: raft env: - name: NETGW_REGION value: "us-east-1" - name: NETGW_PEERS value: "netgw-0.netgw.prism-system.svc.cluster.local:9981,netgw-1.netgw.prism-system.svc.cluster.local:9981,netgw-2.netgw.prism-system.svc.cluster.local:9981" - name: NETGW_CLUSTER_ID value: "global-control-plane" volumeMounts: - name: data mountPath: /var/lib/netgw volumeClaimTemplates:

  • metadata: name: data spec: accessModes: ["ReadWriteOnce"] resources: requests: storage: 10Gi

### Agent Deployment (Per Cluster)

Deploy prism-agent on each Prism gateway cluster

apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: DaemonSet metadata: name: prism-agent namespace: prism spec: template: spec: containers: - name: agent image: prism/agent:latest env: - name: NETGW_ENDPOINT value: "prism-netgw.prism-system.svc.cluster.local:9980" - name: CLUSTER_ID value: "aws-us-east-1-prod" - name: REGION value: "us-east-1" - name: CLOUD_PROVIDER value: "aws" volumeMounts: - name: config-cache mountPath: /var/cache/prism volumes: - name: config-cache emptyDir: {}


## Security Considerations

### 1. Mutual TLS

All communication between netgw and agents uses mTLS:

tls: server_cert: /etc/netgw/tls/server.crt server_key: /etc/netgw/tls/server.key client_ca: /etc/netgw/tls/ca.crt client_cert_required: true


### 2. Authentication

Agents authenticate via client certificates:

CN=prism-agent,O=aws-us-east-1-prod,OU=prism-cluster

3. Authorization​

RBAC policies for cluster operations:

policies:
  - cluster_id: aws-us-east-1-prod
    allowed_operations:
      - RegisterCluster
      - Heartbeat
      - SyncConfig
      - ReportHealth
    forbidden_operations:
      - UnregisterCluster  # Only control plane admin
      - ListClusters       # Only control plane admin

4. Audit Logging​

All control plane operations logged:

{
  "timestamp": "2025-10-09T10:15:23Z",
  "operation": "RegisterCluster",
  "cluster_id": "aws-us-east-1-prod",
  "region": "us-east-1",
  "cloud_provider": "aws",
  "success": true,
  "latency_ms": 45
}

Observability​

Metrics​

Cluster metrics

prism_netgw_clusters_total{region="us-east-1",cloud_provider="aws"} 5 prism_netgw_cluster_health{cluster_id="...",status="healthy"} 1

Config sync metrics

prism_netgw_config_version{cluster_id="..."} 150 prism_netgw_config_sync_latency_ms{cluster_id="..."} 234

Heartbeat metrics

prism_netgw_heartbeat_success_total{cluster_id="..."} 12345 prism_netgw_heartbeat_failure_total{cluster_id="..."} 3 prism_netgw_heartbeat_latency_ms{cluster_id="..."} 156


### Distributed Tracing

Trace: RegisterCluster
├─ netgw: ValidateRequest (2ms)
├─ netgw: StoreCluster → etcd (45ms)
├─ netgw: PublishEvent → NATS (12ms)
└─ netgw: SendResponse (1ms)
Total: 60ms

Migration Path​

Phase 1: Single-Region Deployment (Week 1)​

  • Deploy netgw control plane in one region
  • Register Prism clusters in that region
  • Basic config sync and health monitoring

Phase 2: Multi-Region Expansion (Week 2-3)​

  • Deploy netgw nodes in 3 regions (Raft quorum)
  • Enable cross-region config sync
  • Implement service discovery

Phase 3: Production Hardening (Week 4-5)​

  • Add latency tolerance mechanisms
  • Implement partition handling
  • Add comprehensive observability

Phase 4: Advanced Features (Future)​

  • Gateway-to-gateway routing
  • Data replication across regions
  • Multi-cloud VPC peering

Open Questions​

  1. Control Plane Sizing: How many netgw nodes for global deployment?
  2. Config Storage: etcd vs Consul vs custom Raft?
  3. DNS vs gRPC Discovery: Which is more reliable for clients?
  4. Cross-Region Bandwidth: Cost implications of config sync?
  5. Failover Time: Acceptable latency for cluster failover?

References​

Revision History​

  • 2025-10-09: Initial draft for prism-netgw multi-region control plane