rump13
Hi all,
I’m playing with designing a multi-tenant SaaS pet project using the Control Plane / Application Plane model. There will probably be two main web apps (control and application planes) in Elixir/Phoenix. The control plane will run on a single node (private network, not accessible from the internet, separate DB), while the application plane will be multi-node (accessible from the internet, separate DB).
The question I have is how to enable communication between these two planes/apps. Most examples I’ve found focus on microservice architectures based on HTTP APIs. Others suggest message queues or event buses. Given the strengths of BEAM, I’m wondering:
What are the options BEAM-native or preferred mechanisms for loosely coupled communication between two Elixir applications?
Looking forward to insights from anyone who has tackled something similar!
Where Next?
Trending in Questions
Other Trending Topics
Latest on Elixir Forum
Sponsor Spotlight
Master modern tools, write cleaner code, and tackle real-world challenges with Manning books, videos, and courses. Start building today.
Categories:
Sub Categories:
Forums
Popular Tags
- #ecto
- #liveview
- #troubleshooting
- #learning-elixir
- #library
- #deployment
- #erlang
- #testing
- #genserver
- #mix
- #absinthe
- #remote-other
- #otp
- #plug
- #how-to-question
- #macros
- #postgres
- #elixirconf
- #channels
- #exunit
- #discussion
- #code-sync
- #podcasts
- #javascript
- #onsite
- #dialyzer
- #docker
- #authentication
- #umbrella
- #full-time-contract
- #podcasts-by-brainlid
- #ecto-query
- #ai
- #elixirconf-us
- #blog-post
- #elixir-ls
- #phoenix_html
- #iex
- #graphql
- #genstage
- #websockets
- #supervisor
- #advent-of-code
- #distillery
- #processes
- #api
- #forms
- #hex
- #security
- #metaprogramming
Our Sponsors
Build Elixir applications with speed and confidence.
Supporting innovation across the BEAM ecosystem.
We build reliable cloud platforms for business-critical systems.
Error tracking, logs, uptime, and Just Enough APM. Built for developers.
Elixir, Erlang & BEAM conferences from Code Sync - join us in 2026!
Practical resources that improve the lives of professional developers.
**Building the future of software with AI, trust, and human connection.**
The deployment platform built for Elixir: PaaS ease, VPS control.
The team behind Membrane, Popcorn, LiveDebugger. Available for hire.
Courses that'll move you from confusion to "Aha, now I get it!"
Showing Posts 1 to 7- Show Best Posts
- Show All (oldest first)
- Show All (newest first)
apoorv-2204
cmo
Do you want the two planes clustered?
rump13
Application plane will be a cluster. Control plane not and it will be on a separate node, separate subnet.
schneebyte
The only thing i can think of is messages between processes through distributed Erlang. But as soon as you connect your control plane node to the application nodes/cluster they will have full access to your control plane node.
cmo
If they’re not clustered, you’re outside of the BEAM native umbrella aren’t you? Then you can choose between HTTP, Websockets, grpc, etc.
I’ve used Phoenix channels to do multiple client to server connection using Slipstream. I wanted to know when they’re connected and channels provided the tools for that.
rump13
Thank you for the ideas. I´m going to do my homework and investigate the Phoenix channels option. I’ll deploy in AWS, so SQS may be the best option to keep them completely decoupled.
dimitarvp
As @schneebyte points out, you absolutely do NOT want your control plane node joining the cluster of the application nodes; the BEAM VM excels at many things but refined access controls is not one of them – that new node will have full access. From your description it seems you don’t want that so indeed go with SQS or any other external and decoupled message-passing solution.