The Akash DeCloud is comprised of two main components:
The Network: an on-chain decentralized [marketplace] (DEX) for leasing computing resources.
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.
Deploying applications onto Akash involves two types of users:
The Tenant: the entity that deploys the application.
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:
The tenant describes their desired deployment in [SDL], called a deployment.
The tenant submits that definition to the blockchain.
Their submission generates an order on the [marketplace].
Providers that would like to fulfill that order on it.
The provider executes workloads as instructed by the manifest.
The workload is running - if it is a web application it can be visited, etc...
The provider or tenant eventually closes the lease, shutting down the workload.