Sphere is a modular platform built to run and scale complex applications across distributed environments. It offers a robust runtime environment, service orchestration, and a unified API layer to manage the entire ecosystem.
Sphere organizes its ecosystem using real-world geography as a metaphor for logical structuring. This helps teams understand, build, and scale complex systems with clear boundaries and contextual organization.
Each level in the hierarchy represents a different scope of control, abstraction, or responsibility—ranging from high-level governance to individual service units.
The Universe is the topmost layer of the platform—a collection of Planets that are interconnected, yet independently operable. One master Planet within each Universe is responsible for alignment, coordination, and oversight across the ecosystem.
Use case: A Universe might represent an entire enterprise or a globally distributed system of systems.
A Planet is a fully functional, independent instance of the Sphere platform. It includes its own resources, environments, and service layers.
Use case: Planets can be used to isolate different environments (e.g. production, staging) or business domains.
Continents are high-level organizational layers that group related Countries together. They help establish boundaries between large domains within a Planet.
Use case: Separate departments or regions like "North America Ops" or "Platform Services."
A Country is a focused area of operation, representing a team, domain, or function. Each Country governs its own structure, policies, and services.
Use case: An individual team or product unit working within a larger Continent.
States manage related operational zones within a Country. They serve as containers for Cities and below, enabling local governance and customization.
Use case: Sub-divisions within a department, like mobile vs. web operations.
A City clusters multiple Towns, acting as an activity hub for cohesive groups of services or initiatives.
Use case: A feature set or tightly integrated suite of tools.
Towns contain related Villages. They are mid-level organizing layers—ideal for managing small projects, experiments, or service groups.
A Village groups together Neighborhoods, representing small ecosystems or tightly coupled modules.
Neighborhoods contain multiple Blocks, often grouped by use case, deployment scope, or functionality.
Blocks are clusters of components, like service bundles or application modules.
Streets are pathways—representing connections, interactions, or flows between different parts of the system.
Use case: Message buses, APIs, or job queues.
Units are the smallest deployable parts of the platform. These might be services, containers, functions, or lightweight processes.
This structure gives teams:
- Clarity — Intuitive, real-world naming
- Scalability — Easily map your organization’s growth
- Modularity — Build and deploy with flexible boundaries
- Governance — Apply policies at the right level of control
As the platform evolves, more components will be activated and documented to help you unlock the full power of Sphere.
Coming soon: Interactive tooling, visual explorers, and API access for every layer of the hierarchy.