LAS VEGAS – VMware is no stranger to strategic partnerships, and its latest announcement at VMWorld, is the result of yet another one.
The company is collaborating with Pivotal Software Inc., a U.S.-based software and services company, and Google Cloud to launch Pivotal Container Service (PKS). This product will allow enterprises and service providers to deliver production-ready Kubernetes, Google’s open-source platform for deploying, scaling and operating application containers, on VMware vSphere, the company’s cloud computing virtualization platform, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). PKS will also be compatible with Google Container Engine (GKE).
PKS is essentially the commercial release of Kubo, an open-source platform jointly developed by Pivotal and Google to help manage and deploy Kubernetes clusters on any cloud by applying BOSH technology, a tool chain for engineering, deployment, and lifecycle management of large scale distributed services. It will help large enterprises operationalize Kubernetes to better manage containers.
PKS will be available in calendar Q4 2017, and ship as a standalone product that can be integrated with Pivotal Cloud Foundry, an open-source cloud computing platform, and VMware’s software-defined data centre (SDDC) infrastructure. Pricing is not yet available.
“VMware has partnered with Pivotal and Google, industry leaders in the application development platform space, to deliver an enterprise-ready Kubernetes solution integrated with VMware’s software-defined data center infrastructure,” Sanjay Poonen, chief operating officer of customer operations at VMware, says at VMWorld. “Pivotal Container Service is purpose-built to deliver Kubernetes that is easy to deploy and operate, ready for developer consumption, while addressing the operational needs of IT. This new solution is unique in its ability to enable developers and IT to work as one.”
PKS will assist operations teams in delivering a reliable and easily maintainable container platform, while giving developers on-demand access to a production-ready environment with high availability, security, and multi-tenancy across private and public clouds.
Its initial release will include “Kubernetes via BOSH, VMware NSX [a virtual networking and security software product], and a jointly developed version of Open Services Broker API that allows easy integration of GCP services into PKS applications,” VMware explains.
It will come with cross-cloud security and network connectivity, as well as NSX-powered container network interface (CNI) compatible services. Additionally, with its integration into VMware’s vSphere, customers will be able to use the company’s SDDC infrastructure for containers.
Another benefit for enterprise-size customers is PKS’ compatibility with GKE, which will bring users “the latest container-native innovations in a secure and consistent environment. With PKS and GKE, users will gain the workload portability, operational simplicity and agility to speed business outcomes,” VMware says in an Aug. 29 press release.
“We see an open hybrid cloud ecosystem forming based on many technologists and providers coming together on Kubernetes, and PKS is a great way to run containers and Kubernetes on premises,” explains Sam Ramji, vice president of product management and developer platforms at Google Cloud. “It gives you native access to Google Cloud services, and it’s on the same release cadence as GKE. With PKS plus GKE, you get constant compatibility, and your services, and workloads are deployed the same way, anywhere you need them.”