Mesosphere updated its data center operating system (DC/OS) container platform with deeper integration of the Kubernetes container orchestrator and other enhancements focused on edge and multi-cloud support.
Kubernetes is now being offered as a service in a move to ease deployments and management across different infrastructures. This includes on premises and across different public clouds.
Mesosphere CTO Tobi Knaup explained that the company took what could be more than 20 distinct steps in setting up a production-ready Kubernetes cluster and collapsed that to a single click. It also allows for service scaling and upgrades without disrupting running applications.
This was part of a broader focus in targeting ongoing Kubernetes deployment challenges.
“Some have tried Kubernetes on their laptops and liked using it,” Knaup said. “But, in terms of moving it into an operational or production environment, Kubernetes can still be a challenge…A lot of people are struggling with that, and that is an area where we are focused.”
Mesosphere is also sticking with running a pure version of Kubernetes within DC/OS. That includes current support for the latest Kubernetes 1.9 version released late last year.
“We offer a pure version of Kubernetes, and don’t hide anything behind APIs,” Knaup said.
Mesosphere last September announced plans to support Kubernetes as a container orchestrator within its DC/OS platform. That move began with a trial as part of DC/OS version 1.1, and had Kubernetes running alongside Mesosphere’s own Marathon orchestrator.
Knaup at that time said the move was about offering its customers more choices in terms of their container orchestration needs.
“It’s important for us to understand our target customers are usually the operations teams,” Knaup said. “These folks offer platforms for all the developers at a company sometimes serving up to 10,000 developers. They use a variety of software and can’t be limited to one option. Choice is very important.”
Multi-Cloud, Security Updates
Beyond the enhanced Kubernetes support, the 1.11 version of DC/OS includes support for edge and multi-cloudfederation and management updates.
The edge and multi-cloud support allows users to tap into any combination of cloud, data center, and edge compute infrastructure in a single resource pool. From there, they can schedule workloads using a unified user interface.
There is also a cloud bursting component that allows users to manage remote capacity to on-premises clusters from regional data centers or public clouds to deal with fluctuating demand.
And, of course, no update these days would be complete without a security angle. For DC/OS 1.11, this includes encryption of data in transit; data service integration with authentication, authorization, and access control mechanisms; and improved secrets management.
“We really want to make this foolproof,” Knaup explained. “Security is often error-prone, and it’s easy during set up to make the wrong choices. We are focused on providing best practices as standard, and all the user has to do is check the box to enable.”
[“Source-sdxcentral”]
