How we designed the GitLab Reference Architectures

What this post added

This post details the design and evolution of GitLab Reference Architectures, which provide scalable and elastic starting points for deploying GitLab at scale. It outlines the problem of customer deployment hurdles, the goals of performance, availability, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and maintainability, and the iterative process of gathering metrics (using RPS), defining prototype architectures, building, and testing. It highlights the development of the GitLab Performance Tool and GitLab Environment Toolkit to support this process. The post also details the ongoing expansion and refinement of these architectures, including various sizes, cloud-native hybrid variants, and cloud provider guidance, all underpinned by a continuous testing program.