Runtime Instance Installation Options
Konnect supports Kong Gateway as a runtime. You can set up any number of Kong Gateway runtime instances.
A Kong Gateway runtime instance acts as a data plane, which is a node serving traffic for the proxy. Data plane nodes are not directly connected to a database. Instead, they receive configuration from their runtime group, which stores and manages the configuration in Kong Konnect.
In situations where forward proxies are non-transparent, you can still connect the Kong Gateway data plane with the Kong Konnect control plane. To do this, you need to configure each Kong Gateway runtime instance to authenticate with the proxy server and allow traffic through. For more information, see Control Plane and Data Plane Communication through a Forward Proxy in the Kong Gateway documentation.
We recommend running one major version (2.x or 3.x) of a runtime instance per runtime group, unless you are in the middle of version upgrades to the data plane. Mixing versions may cause compatibility issues.
Note: Kong does not host runtimes. You must install and host your own runtime instances.
