---
layout: docs
page_title: Deploy Consul
description: >-
  Learn about the editions of Consul you can deploy as Consul server agents, client agents, and dataplanes. You can find additional guidance for the deployment process in our tutorials.
---

# Deploy Consul

This topic provides an overview of the configurations and processes to deploy a Consul agent in your network. 

A node must run Consul to connect to a Consul datacenter. It can run either as a server agent, or as a client agent or Consul dataplane that supports an application workload.

## Consul editions

You can configure agents to run a specific edition of Consul.

| Edition              | How to enable                                         |
| :------------------- | :---------------------------------------------------- |
| Community edition    | Enabled by default.                                   |
| Enterprise           | Configure `license` block in the agent configuration. |
| [FIPS 140-2 compliant](/consul/docs/deploy/server/fips) | Specify an alternate source binary or image.          |

To find the package for a specific release, refer to [releases.hashicorp.com](https://releases.hashicorp.com). To learn more about the differences in Consul editions and their available features, refer to [Consul edition fundamentals](/consul/docs/fundamentals/editions).

## Documentation

The following resources are available to help you deploy Consul on nodes in your network.

To deploy a Consul server, refer to the instructions for your runtime:

- [Deploy Consul servers on VMs](/consul/docs/deploy/server/vm)
- [Deploy Consul servers on Kubernetes](/consul/docs/deploy/server/k8s)
- [Deploy Consul servers on AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS)](/consul/docs/deploy/server/ecs)
- [Deploy Consul servers on Docker](/consul/docs/deploy/server/docker)

By default, the servers you deploy use the WAL backend for the Raft index. To learn more, refer to [WAL LogStore backend overview](/consul/docs/deploy/server/wal).

To deploy a Consul process alongside you application workloads, follow the instructions to deploy a client agent or Consul dataplanes:

- Deploy Consul client agents:
  - [Deploy client agents on VMs](/consul/docs/deploy/workload/client/vm)
  - [Deploy client agents on Kubernetes](/consul/docs/deploy/workload/client/k8s)
  - [Deploy client agents on Docker](/consul/docs/deploy/workload/client/docker)
- Deploy Consul dataplanes:
  - [Deploy dataplanes on Kubernetes](/consul/docs/deploy/workload/dataplane/k8s)
  - [Deploy dataplanes on AWS ECS](/consul/docs/deploy/workload/dataplane/ecs)

You can also [configure cloud auto-join](/consul/docs/deploy/server/cloud-auto-join) so that nodes automatically join the Consul cluster when they start.

## Tutorials

The following tutorials provide additional instruction in the process to deploy Consul agents.

### Virtual Machines

- [Getting Started: Deploy Consul on VMs](/consul/tutorials/get-started-vms/virtual-machine-gs-deploy)
- [Consul reference architecture](/consul/tutorials/production-vms/reference-architecture)
- [Production: Deployment Guide](/consul/tutorials/production-vms/deployment-guide)

### Kubernetes

- [Getting Started: Deploy Consul on Kubernetes](/consul/tutorials/get-started-kubernetes/kubernetes-gs-deploy)
- [Consul on Kubernetes reference architecture](/consul/tutorials/production-kubernetes/kubernetes-reference-architecture)
- [Production: Consul and Kubernetes deployment guide](/consul/tutorials/production-kubernetes/kubernetes-deployment-guide)