> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.marcus.involvecloud.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Choose a topology

> Per-site, central, hybrid or cloud-hosted: pick the Collector topology that fits your estate.

Four topologies cover almost every real-world deployment. The *M.A.R.C.U.S. — Network Flow* and *Multi-Site Network Flow* diagrams illustrate them.

## Per-site Collector (the default)

Each site has one Collector on its local AV VLAN, which reaches devices over the LAN. Each site's firewall allows outbound HTTPS only.

<Tip>
  **Best for:** most deployments. It gives the best failure isolation, the lowest latency to devices and the simplest network design.
</Tip>

## Shared central Collector

One Collector, at head office or in a data centre, reaches every site's AV VLAN over your corporate WAN.

<Tip>
  **Best for:** small and medium estates on a reliable corporate WAN, where running one host is preferable to deploying at every site.
</Tip>

## Hybrid

Each major site runs its own Collector, and a central Collector serves the smaller regional offices.

<Tip>
  **Best for:** large estates with sites of mixed sizes. This is the most common pattern in practice.
</Tip>

## Cloud-hosted Collector

The Collector runs in your own cloud tenant (AWS, Azure or Google Cloud). It reaches your sites over your existing private connectivity: site-to-site VPN, AWS Direct Connect, Azure ExpressRoute or Google Cloud Interconnect.

<Tip>
  **Best for:** organisations whose IT or AV workloads already run in that cloud tenant and who want the Collector alongside them.
</Tip>

## Which one is right for you?

**Do you already run workloads in a particular cloud tenant?**

* **Yes:** deploy the Collector in that tenant. Use your existing Kubernetes platform (see [Run on Kubernetes](/deploy/kubernetes)) or the cloud's managed container option (see [Run on a managed container platform](/deploy/managed-containers)).
* **No:** deploy on-premises.

**How many sites do you have, and what connects them?**

* **One site, or several sites on a reliable WAN:** use a shared central Collector.
* **Many sites with separate AV VLANs and no reliable link between them:** use a Collector at each site.
* **A mix of both:** use the hybrid pattern.

**How does your organisation prefer to run services?**

* **Native services:** Linux (see [Install on Linux](/deploy/install-linux)) or Windows Server (see [Install on Windows Server](/deploy/install-windows)).
* **Docker, without Kubernetes:** Docker (see [Run with Docker](/deploy/docker)) or a managed container platform (see [Run on a managed container platform](/deploy/managed-containers)).
* **Kubernetes:** a `Deployment` in your cluster (see [Run on Kubernetes](/deploy/kubernetes)).

If your organisation has a policy on container images versus native binaries, follow it. Both are fully supported and behave the same in operation.