The Akash DeCloud is comprised of two main components:

1. The Network: an on-chain decentralized [marketplace] (DEX) for leasing computing resources.

2. The Platform: an off-chain deployment platform used for hosting and managing workloads.

The Network is built with cosmos-sdk - it is a tendermint-based blockchain application.

The Platform is a set of cloud management services that leverage Kubernetes to run workloads.

The software to run the Network, the Platform, and the command-line client used to interact with them are all currently distributed in the akash application.

Workflow - Life of a Deployment

Deploying applications onto Akash involves two types of users:

1. The Tenant: the entity that deploys the application.

2. The Provider: the entity that hosts the application.

Given that there are live providers on the network, the lifecycle of a typical application deployment is as follows:

1. The tenant describes their desired deployment in [SDL], called a deployment.

2. The tenant submits that definition to the blockchain.

3. Their submission generates an order on the [marketplace].

4. Providers that would like to fulfill that order on it.

5. After some period of time, a winning bid for the order is chosen, and a lease is created.

6. Once a lease has been created, the tenant submits a manifest to the provider.

7. The provider executes workloads as instructed by the manifest.

8. The workload is running - if it is a web application it can be visited, etc...

9. The provider or tenant eventually closes the lease, shutting down the workload.