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Environment Management

Realm9 provides comprehensive environment management capabilities to help you organize, track, and control access to your IT environments.

Overview

Environments in Realm9 represent any infrastructure setup - development, staging, production, or specialized test environments. Each environment can be:

  • Tracked for costs and usage
  • Booked by teams with approval workflows
  • Monitored with built-in observability
  • Managed through Terraform automation

Creating Environments

Via Web UI

  1. Navigate to Environments in the sidebar
  2. Click Create Environment
  3. Fill in the required details:
    • Name and display name
    • Environment type (Development, Staging, Production)
    • Cost information
    • Business and technical owners
  4. Click Create

Environment Types

  • DEVELOPMENT - For active development work
  • STAGING - Pre-production testing
  • PRODUCTION - Live production systems
  • TESTING - Quality assurance and testing
  • SANDBOX - Experimental environments

Managing Environments

Environment Details

Each environment tracks:

  • Basic Information: Name, type, description
  • Cost Tracking: Hourly cost, currency, total spend
  • Ownership: Business and technical owners
  • Access Control: Who can view, book, and modify
  • Compliance: Security and regulatory tags
  • Status: Available, booked, maintenance, etc.

Shared Environments

Realm9 supports shared environments that multiple teams can use concurrently:

isShared: true
maxConcurrentTeams: 3

This allows up to 3 teams to book the same environment simultaneously.

Environment Booking

Book environments for your team with built-in approval workflows:

  1. Search for available environments
  2. Select booking time range
  3. Provide business justification
  4. Submit for approval
  5. Get notified when approved

See Environment Booking for details.

Environment Tags

Organize environments with custom tags:

  • Cost Center: For budget tracking
  • Project: Link to specific projects
  • Compliance: PCI, HIPAA, SOC2, etc.
  • Technology: AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, etc.

Best Practices

Naming Conventions

Use clear, consistent naming:

<project>-<environment>-<region>
Examples:
- web-app-dev-us-east
- api-staging-eu-west
- db-prod-us-west

Cost Tracking

Enable hourly cost tracking for:

  • Budget monitoring
  • Showback/chargeback reports
  • Cost optimization insights

Access Control

Implement least privilege:

  • Viewers: Read-only access
  • Users: Can book environments
  • Managers: Can approve bookings
  • Admins: Full control

Integration

With Observability

Link environments to observability for:

  • Real-time logs
  • Performance metrics
  • Service dependencies
  • Health monitoring

See Observability Guide

With Terraform

Automate environment provisioning:

  • Infrastructure as Code
  • Automated deployments
  • Change approvals
  • Drift detection

See Terraform Integration

API Access

Manage environments programmatically:

# List environments
curl -X GET https://realm9.app/api/environments \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

# Create environment
curl -X POST https://realm9.app/api/environments \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "my-env",
    "displayName": "My Environment",
    "type": "DEVELOPMENT"
  }'

See API Reference for complete documentation.

Troubleshooting

Environment Not Showing

  • Check your organization membership
  • Verify access permissions
  • Ensure environment is not archived

Cannot Book Environment

  • Environment may be fully booked
  • Check if approval is required
  • Verify booking policy settings

Next Steps

Support

For help with environment management: