PhonePe Cloud (PPEC) — Simplified Overview

What is PPEC?

PPEC (PhonePe Cloud) is PhonePe’s internal cloud provisioning system. It’s like their private version of AWS, designed to fit how their internal teams work.

It helps teams:

Get new machines (servers)
Set them up quickly
Run virtual machines (VMs)
Manage everything from one place
Track and audit who does what

Why Was PPEC Built?

Earlier, a few experts handled infrastructure with tribal knowledge.
As PhonePe scaled, many teams (non-experts too) needed to provision servers.
PPEC was built to make provisioning easier, safer, and more reliable.

Key Design Goals

Single client usable across all regions (with proper authorization)
Auditability and changelogs
Full lifecycle support: from racking → inventory → provisioning → retiring

Core Workflows

1. New Inventory Handling

New server boots into PIOUS (PhonePe Inventory OS)
Verifies hardware specs and health
Promotes healthy machines to a SPARE state
SPAREs = ready-to-use machines, classified by type

2. Baremetal Provisioning

SPAREs become BAREMETALs (production servers)
Hardened OS images installed via PIOUS
Hardware integrity is checked during provisioning

3. Virtual Machine Management

Uses KVM + libvirt + QEMU
VM placement done via Mesos (for now)
Migration planned to a custom placement algorithm

Interfaces to Use PPEC

PPEC Client (CLI)

Query assets
Provision VMs or baremetals
Manage IPs, networks, regions
Tag resources
RBAC (role-based access control)
Maker-checker system

PPEC Dashboard (Web UI)

Visual view of assets by region
Filter/search machines
Generate scoped credentials
Alerts and logs
Built-in docs & Swagger

PPEC SDK

Programmatic API access
Used in automation, monitoring, CI/CD pipelines

Summary

PPEC is:

A cloud provisioning system made for PhonePe’s internal use
Tailored to how their teams operate
Focused on usability, reliability, and no unused features
Available via CLI, Dashboard, and SDK

It’s how PhonePe manages infrastructure at scale, safely and efficiently.