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SAIF Platform Architecture

Overview

The Secure AI Factory (SAIF) Platform is a production-grade, fully automated infrastructure for deploying AI workloads on Cisco UCS hardware with enterprise security and observability.

SAIF Platform 1.0 combines two layers:

  • AI Pod: Base infrastructure (network, server, Kubernetes)
  • Secure AI Factory: Security + observability extension

Platform Diagram

graph TB
    subgraph SAIF["SAIF PLATFORM 1.0"]

        subgraph FACTORY["SECURE AI FACTORY (Day 2 - GitOps)"]
            subgraph OBS["OBSERVABILITY"]
                HT[Hubble Timescape]
                SOTEL[Splunk OTEL]
                VEC[Vector]
                DCGM[DCGM Metrics]
            end

            subgraph SEC["SECURITY"]
                TET[Tetragon]
                CNP[Cilium Policies]
            end

            subgraph AI["AI WORKLOADS"]
                NIM[NIM Operator]
                GPUOP[GPU Operator]
                LLM[LLM Model]
            end
        end

        subgraph POD["AI POD (Day 0 + Day 1)"]
            subgraph NET["NETWORK"]
                ACI[ACI Fabric]
                CIL[Cilium CNI]
                DNS[VLANs/DNS]
            end

            subgraph SRV["SERVER"]
                UCS[UCS-X Blades]
                INT[Intersight]
                L40S[NVIDIA L40S GPU]
                NVME[NVMe RAID]
            end

            subgraph K8S["KUBERNETES"]
                OCP[OpenShift 4.19]
                ARGO[ArgoCD Bootstrap]
                IDMS[Base IDMS]
            end
        end

        subgraph SUPPORT["SUPPORTING INFRASTRUCTURE"]
            subgraph CICD["CI/CD"]
                RUN[GitHub Runners]
                REG[Container Registry]
                ISO[ISO File Server]
            end

            subgraph CREDS["CREDENTIALS"]
                KC[Kubeconfigs]
            end

            subgraph VM["VM TEMPLATES"]
                PACK[Packer Ubuntu 24.04]
            end
        end

        ORCH[["ORCHESTRATION: saif-platform"]]
    end

    FACTORY --> POD
    POD --> SUPPORT
    ORCH -.-> FACTORY
    ORCH -.-> POD
    ORCH -.-> SUPPORT
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Layer Repositories:

  • Secure AI Factory: saif-gitops, saif-splunk-dashboard
  • AI Pod: saif-ai-pod, saif-sys-admin
  • Supporting: Runner VM and VM template repositories (organization-specific)

Layer Definitions

AI Pod (Base Infrastructure)

The AI Pod provides GPU-enabled Kubernetes infrastructure. It can exist independently.

Component Technology Purpose
Network ACI Fabric, Cilium CNI L2/L3 connectivity, pod networking
Server UCS-X, Intersight Hardware lifecycle, GPU (L40S)
Kubernetes OpenShift 4.19 Container orchestration

Repositories:

  • saif-ai-pod - UCS profiles, OpenShift deployment
  • saif-sys-admin - Image mirroring, IDMS generation

Secure AI Factory (Extension)

The SAIF layer adds enterprise security and observability on top of AI Pod.

Component Technology Purpose
Observability Hubble Timescape, Splunk, Vector Flow storage, metrics, dashboards
Security Tetragon, Cilium Network Policies Runtime enforcement, network segmentation
AI Workloads NIM, GPU Operator Model inference, GPU scheduling

Repositories:

  • saif-gitops - All Day 2 operators and workloads
  • saif-splunk-dashboard - Observability dashboard configuration

Supporting Infrastructure

Repository Purpose
Runner VM repo GitHub Actions runners, container registry, ISO server
VM template repo VM image automation for infrastructure

Note: The post-install workflow pushes kubeconfigs to a separate repository. Configure KUBECONFIG_REPO_TOKEN and the kubeconfig repository URL for your environment.

Deployment Flow

flowchart LR
    subgraph D0["Day 0"]
        UCS["UCS Profile<br/>Deployment"]
    end

    subgraph D1A["Day 1"]
        OCP["OpenShift<br/>Installation"]
    end

    subgraph D1B["Day 1"]
        POST["Post-Install<br/>Bootstrap"]
    end

    subgraph D2["Day 2"]
        GITOPS["ArgoCD<br/>GitOps"]
    end

    D0 -->|saif-ai-pod| D1A
    D1A -->|"Agent-Based<br/>Installer + Cilium"| D1B
    D1B -->|"IDMS + ArgoCD"| D2
    D2 -->|saif-gitops| APPS["All operators<br/>& workloads"]

    UCS -.-> TF["Terraform + isctl"]
    OCP -.-> ABI["Agent-Based Installer"]
    POST -.-> MIN["Minimal handoff"]
    GITOPS -.-> AUTO["Auto-deployed"]
Loading

Data Flow

graph TB
    subgraph "Data Sources"
        APP[Applications]
        GPU[GPU Metrics]
        NET[Network Flows]
        SEC[Security Events]
    end

    subgraph "Collection"
        OTEL[Splunk OTEL]
        VEC[Vector]
        HUB[Hubble Relay]
        TET[Tetragon]
    end

    subgraph "Storage & Analysis"
        SPL[Splunk Cloud]
        TS[Hubble Timescape]
    end

    subgraph "Output"
        DASH[Dashboards]
    end

    APP --> OTEL
    GPU --> OTEL
    NET --> HUB
    SEC --> TET

    OTEL --> SPL
    VEC --> TS
    HUB --> TS
    TET --> OTEL

    SPL --> DASH
    TS --> DASH
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Repository Map

graph LR
    subgraph PLATFORM["SAIF Platform Repos"]
        ORCH[saif-platform<br/>Orchestration]

        subgraph INFRA["Infrastructure"]
            AIPOD[saif-ai-pod<br/>UCS + OCP]
            SYSADM[saif-sys-admin<br/>Mirroring + IDMS]
        end

        subgraph WORKLOADS["Workloads"]
            GITOPS[saif-gitops<br/>Day 2 Apps]
            SPLUNK[saif-splunk-dashboard<br/>Dashboards]
        end

        subgraph SUPPORT["Support"]
            RUNNER[Runner VM<br/>CI/CD]
            PACKER[VM Templates<br/>VM Images]
        end
    end

    ORCH --> INFRA
    ORCH --> WORKLOADS
    ORCH --> SUPPORT
    INFRA --> WORKLOADS
Loading

Hardware Inventory

Cluster Server Profile IP GPU Purpose
ai-pod-1 saif-ai-pod-1 10.0.1.101 NVIDIA L40S Primary demo
ai-pod-2 saif-ai-pod-2 10.0.1.102 NVIDIA L40S AI workloads
ai-pod-3 saif-ai-pod-3 10.0.1.103 None Workload testing
ai-pod-4 saif-ai-pod-4 10.0.1.104 None Development

Key Integrations

From To Integration
GitHub Actions Intersight UCS profile deployment
GitHub Actions OpenShift Cluster installation
ArgoCD GitHub GitOps sync
Hubble ClickHouse Flow storage (Timescape)
Vector Hubble Timescape Flow forwarding
Splunk OTEL Splunk Cloud Metrics/logs

Version Information

Current release: SAIF Platform 1.0

See platform-release.yaml for complete SBOM including:

  • OpenShift 4.19
  • Cilium Enterprise 1.18
  • NVIDIA GPU Operator v25.10
  • Tetragon 1.18
  • All operator and image versions

Related Documentation