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ACE consists of several components, distributed over a number of nodes in the network. The image above shows the most elaborate situation, consisting of five nodes, each running their part of some functionality of ACE.

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The system has the following nodes,

• Client A client system has functionality for altering the configuration of the deployment process.
• Server The server contains all necessary metadata to allow provisioning, and acts as a hub for logging information.
• Relay A relay server keeps a copy of the metadata of the server, and can provide a target with all functionality a 'regular' server can. Note that this allows for offline provisioning, and note that there can be a chain of relay servers.
• Target The target is the system to which software is to be provisioned.
• OBR The OBR contains the actual software to be provisioned.

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The nodes together have the following components,

• Deployment See below.
• Logging See below.
• Identification Each target needs a unique name; the Identification components provide this functionality.
• Discovery Targets and relays need to find the next server 'upstream' from the current node.
• Configuration ACE uses its own configuration mechanism, which works by reading configuration files, and putting that information into Config Admin.
• Scheduling Some components needs to have scheduled actions to allow logging and provisioning; the Scheduling component helps with that.

Given this information, it might also be useful to compare this with the Software Architecture.

Alternative topologies

TODO show the possible topologies: single server and gateway, separate OBR, several relays, where does the client fit in, how to work behind a firewall, etc.

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