AlchemiStudio on SUSE AI Factory

SUSE AI Factory turns a Rancher Prime / RKE2 cluster into a managed environment for AI workloads (a Rancher UI extension plus the aif-operator). AlchemiStudio runs as a first-class AI application on top of it.

What runs where


Rancher Prime  ──manages──▶  RKE2 cluster
                                │
                                ├─ SUSE AI Factory (aif-operator 2.0.0)
                                │    └─ Blueprints / AIWorkloads (Fleet GitOps)
                                │
                                └─ AlchemiStudio Platform (one Helm chart)
                                     ├─ App tier: web, ai, compute-api, worker, zenith, guardrails
                                     ├─ Auth: Keycloak (SSO, realm + clients)
                                     ├─ Gateway: APISIX (+ etcd)
                                     ├─ Data tier: pgvector PostgreSQL, Redis, OpenObserve
                                     ├─ Storage: Longhorn (RWO + RWX), object store (SeaweedFS/OpenDAL)
                                     └─ Secrets: OpenBao + External Secrets Operator (optional)

Component summary

Layer	Component	Role
Applications	`alchemi-web`	UI backend / console
	`alchemi-ai`	Agent / LLM orchestration
	`alchemi-compute-api`	Code / compute sandbox control plane
	`alchemi-worker`	Async jobs
	`alchemi-zenith`	Platform/admin services
	`alchemi-guardrails`	PII, jailbreak, toxicity, content-filter, secret-detection, topical
Identity	Keycloak	SSO / OIDC for all apps
Gateway	APISIX (+ etcd)	Ingress, routing, request policy
Data	PostgreSQL (pgvector)	Relational + vector store
	Redis	Cache / queues
	OpenObserve	Logs, metrics, traces
Storage	Longhorn	Block (RWO) and shared (RWX) volumes
	SeaweedFS / OpenDAL	Object storage for files/artifacts
Secrets	OpenBao + ESO	Store and sync provider secrets (optional)

SUSE-native swaps

When moving from a cloud to SUSE AI, AlchemiStudio swaps managed services for SUSE-native equivalents:

Cloud managed service	SUSE-native replacement
Managed Key Vault	OpenBao (+ External Secrets Operator)
Managed PostgreSQL / Redis	In-cluster pgvector PostgreSQL / Redis (or your external ones)
Cloud container registry	Harbor / your private registry / SUSE Application Collection
Cloud blob storage	SeaweedFS (S3-compatible via OpenDAL)
Cloud managed disks	Longhorn

The Blueprint model

AlchemiStudio can be delivered as a SUSE AI Factory Blueprint and reconciled by Fleet from a Git repository, so it appears as a catalog card and stays in sync with Git. This is the GitOps delivery path; the Rancher App path is the guided-form alternative.

Next: Model serving · Observability, security & storage.