Adobe: Scaling Adobe’s Service Delivery Foundation with a Cell-based Architecture

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Adobe's Internal Developer Platform, code-named "Flex," is a GitOps-based service delivery foundation built on Kubernetes, Backstage, and the Argo ecosystem (Argo CD, Workflows, Events, and Rollouts) to provide a seamless developer experience from code creation to cloud deployment. As platform adoption rapidly expanded to over 30,000 monthly deployments, Adobe's initial single-cluster "Hub-and-Spoke" architecture encountered severe Kubernetes control plane bottlenecks and stability risks. To solve these scaling challenges, Adobe transitioned to a "Flex-in-a-Box" (FiaB) model, which operates as a cell-based architecture. This new design encapsulates the CI/CD components into independent, easily replicable "Flexboxes" (cells) that can scale horizontally on demand. Supported by custom components like a "Redirector" for intelligent event routing and a "Relocator" for seamless, zero-downtime service migrations between boxes, this cell-based approach provides Adobe with predictable scalability, isolated fault boundaries to limit the blast radius of failures, and a resilient foundation to support massive future growth across diverse workloads.

Link: https://architecture.cncf.io/architectures/adobe/