KanbanBOX infrastructure

Technical document for IT professionals

This document explains KanbanBOX technical specifications concerning infrastructure, data access, data security and communications with external software.

KanbanBOX is a Software as a Service (SaaS)

KanbanBOX application is provided as a service: customers just need a user account in order to access and use the application. The design, maintenance and update of the hardware infrastructure is charged to the KanbanBOX team.

KanbanBOX Interfaces

Web interface

The main user interface, accessible with an internet browser.

KanbanBOX web interface works at best with most recent browsers:

• Chrome latest stable version
• Edge latest stable version
• Safari latest stable version
• Firefox latest stable version

KanbanBOX might not function properly with other browsers or too old versions of the suggested browsers.

Smartphone and Tablet Android/iOS interface

KanbanBOX Android and iOS apps are available on the Google and Apple App Stores.

They make it easy accessing and working with handheld devices. Currently available functions are:

• Changing kanban cards status, scanning the barcode with the onboard camera or barcode scanner;
• Querying a kanban card, to get all the information and the current status of that card;
• Viewing the electronic kanban boards.

Web mobile interface

Web graphic interface for warehouse handheld devices running on Windows CE or Windows Mobile.

Currently available functions are:

• Changing kanban cards status, scanning the barcode with the onboard barcode scanner;
• Querying a kanban card, to get all the information and the current status of that card;
• Custom operations on kanban cards.

API - Application Programming Interface

KanbanBOX API is an HTTP REST API, that allows to external software performing real-time read and write operations on KanbanBOX data.

KanbanBOX working environments

Production environment

The production environment is where all the KanbanBOX users manage their kanban systems.

Test environment

The test environment is available for all of the KanbanBOX users, for making test trials, getting used with the interface and trying new features. The test environment is completely disconnected from the production environment, and it’s not sending notification emails nor triggering webhooks: users can safely test any kind of operation.

Pages of the test environment have a green background, in order to be easily recognizable.

Data in the test environment are daily deleted and replaced with the most updated version copied from the production environment. Don’t rely on the durability of data inside the test environment!

On request, the KanbanBOX team can provide custom test environments where data are not automatically refreshed.

KanbanBOX URLs

The following is the list of URLs to access to the KanbanBOX different interfaces and environments:

Interface	Production	Test
Web	https://app.kanbanbox.com	https://test.kanbanbox.com
API	https://api.kanbanbox.com	https://apitest.kanbanbox.com
Android/iOS	Look for the KanbanBOX App on Google and Apple app stores.	Unavailable.

Firewall rules to authorize access to KanbanBOX

In order to allow network communication to the KanbanBOX infrastructure, the following domains must be whitelisted in the company firewall:

• *.kanbanbox.com (where * means all of the subdomains)

KanbanBOX IP addresses may vary over time, depending on workload and infrastructure development; so it’s very important to allow the *.kanbanbox.com domain, not just the at-the-moment associated IPs.

Optionally, the KanbanBOX team can provide access through static IP addresses when the company firewall is not able to manage DNS rules with dynamic IPs.

Access security

User credentials

Users’ access to the KanbanBOX graphic interfaces is protected by a combination of username/password.

Access to the API is granted by adding an API key to each request. The API key is uniquely associated to one user, and can be changed or deleted as needed.

Multi-Factor Authentication

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) can be activated for each user, for an additional level of security.

Access log

Every authorized access, as well as every rejected access attempt, is recorded in the access log, available for inspection to all admin users inside the web interface.

Filter access based on IP

On request, the Client can specify the set of company gateway IPs from which users are authorized to access KanbanBOX.

Federated access and single-sign-on (SSO)

Optionally, the KanbanBOX team can provide Single-Sign-On access connecting to the company identity management software with SAML 2.0 compatible technology.

Communication security

All communications between users and KanbanBOX servers use HTTPS protocol and are encrypted with SSL technology.

API - Application Programming Interface

For information on the KanbanBOX API, please refer to the document “KanbanBOX REST API”:

https://help.kanbanbox.com/hc/it/articles/360006836733-KanbanBOX-REST-API

Webhook

For information on the KanbanBOX Webhooks, please refer to the document “KanbanBOX Webhooks”:

https://help.kanbanbox.com/hc/it/articles/360006837493-KanbanBOX-Webhooks

Infrastructure

KanbanBOX infrastructure is built and hosted inside the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, that guarantees best-in-class availability and security levels.

KanbanBOX infrastructure is designed to provide the following performances:

• Service availability greater than 99,95%;
• Ability to scale the resources depending on actual workload.

The following chart is a simplified representation of the KanbanBOX infrastructure inside the AWS cloud. Infrastructure is currently hosted in the Frankfurt (Germany) data centers.

KanbanBOX infrastructure is developed and replicated inside two different Availability Zones, (Availability Zones are isolated locations inside the same region). In the event of connectivity problems with one availability zone, all the traffic is automatically redirected to the other availability zone.

The main AWS services used by KanbanBOX infrastructure are:

• Elastic Load Balancing ELB: the load balancer, which is redirecting all the traffic to the web servers basing on their current workload and availability;
• Elastic Compute Cloud EC2: virtual web servers, on which the KanbanBOX application is running. New web servers can be up and running in a few seconds if workload in the KanbanBOX infrastructure is requiring so;
• Simple Storage Service S3: file storage service, which is automatically backed-up and replicated for maximum availability and durability of data;
• Relational Database Service RDS: MySQL database of AWS, with multi-availability zone replication and automatic fail-over promotion of Slave to Master;
• CloudWatch: monitoring service, covering every performance aspect of the KanbanBOX infrastructure.

Backups

KanbanBOX user files are stored inside the Simple Storage Service (S3) of AWS, which is taking care of backups for 99.999999999% durability.

KanbanBOX database is backed-up with the following policy:

• Daily backup, with storage of the last 3 daily backups;
• Weekly backup, with storage of the last 3 weekly backups;
• Monthly backup, with storage of the last 3 monthly backups.