Self-hosting#

ℹ️ Requires an Organization plan

Anchorpoint communicates with a server to exchange metadata and project information. Metadata includes:

  • File locking information

  • Attributes and comments

  • Real-time updates and notifications

Project information includes:

  • Workspace information

  • License quotas (but no payment information)

  • Projects

  • Member information (including their email addresses, not login credentials)

It also includes project icons that the user has imported as a PNG file during the project creation process.

All this information is stored on a server hosted by the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider Amazon Web Services (AWS). The corresponding data centers are located in Frankfurt, Germany, with instances running on eu-central-1a, eu-central-1b, and eu-central-1c. This server also communicates with the user authentication system Auth0 for managing login credentials and the payment processing provider Stripe for managing payment information.

The Anchorpoint server never stores production data, which is typically located on a Git server of your choice or a shared folder that is synced through solutions such as your NAS, Dropbox, Google Drive, or similar.

Read more about application infrastructure and security in our security brief.

Self-hosting the Anchorpoint server#

If you need complete control over your data flow and storage, the Anchorpoint server can also be self-hosted on your own VPC, such as an Amazon EC2 instance. If you are on an organization plan that includes the self-hosting option, our team will assist you in setting up this server, support and updates.

Delivery#

The Anchorpoint server is delivered as Docker Compose. This includes all the elements needed to be deployed on your sever. Server updates are also delivered as a Docker Compose and must be installed manually by IT.

You will also receive your own desktop client installer configured to connect to your Anchorpoint server rather than the public Anchorpoint server.

Requirements#

To make sure the Anchorpoint server is running properly, you need:

  • An EC2 instance or similar with 4GB Ram

  • If you want to use SSO, you need an authentication system such as Azure AD or LDAP

  • A mail service, if you want to send email notifications from the Anchorpoint server (optional)

  • An S3 or similar storage bucket for storing media files such as project icons as PNG

Process#

Once you purchase an Organization Plan, a Solutions Architect from our side will be matched with the responsible technical person on your side. We provide all the support needed to get the Anchorpoint server up and running on your system.

Git servers#

As mentioned above, Anchorpoint does not store production data. If you want to use Anchorpoint with Git, you will need to install a self-hosted Gitea or GitLab instance and configure it properly for Git LFS. Again, our Solutions Architect can help.