Kubernetes has been the rising star in IT and is becoming the new standard for deploying applications. It is developing fast, but on the down side expert knowledge is rare and companies are having a hard time keeping up. The ecosystem is rich, but integrating different tools requires a lot of manual labor.
VMware’s survey The State of Kubernetes 2020 shows that the Kubernetes ecosystem is fragmented, saturated with tools and approaches from different vendors, trying to fill the operational challenges that come with Kubernetes.
It is interesting to both developers and infrastructure operators, but with different perspectives on what Kubernetes is and does. Developers want to consume it, infrastructure operators need to provide it.
One thing is certain – Kubernetes is coming to the enterprise world and various vendors are leveraging Kubernetes to deploy their application packages.
Kubernetes plays a big Role in VMware’s strategy
VMware is investing heavily in its software portfolio to build new, and extend existing, solutions for Kubernetes. With its solutions for building, running and managing modern apps on any Cloud, VMware is in top 3 corporate contributors to the Kubernetes community.
While previously the virtual machine was the preferred delivery method, now the container is becoming the “new normal”. This does not mean virtual machines will go away. The result is that providers of infrastructure resources now need to be able to provide two things to their consumers: virtual machines and containers enabled by Kubernetes. Read more here
There are three main areas where VMware adds value to the infrastructure and application stack. All to empower cloud operators, applications owners, platform teams and developers. Read more here
- Infrastructure Layer: VMware has evolved the vSphere platform with native Kubernetes integrations. This simplifies the life of administrators by having the Kubernetes core functionality out-of-the-box on the same level as virtual machines over the same hardware and management tools. Additionally, VMware has released a product to maintain consistent, compliant and conformant Kubernetes clusters: Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.
- Cloud Management Layer: All resources need to be managed. That is where the cloud management stack provides control across those resources. VMware vRealize and CloudHealth product portfolio provide capabilities to manage Kubernetes from a cost, security, compliance perspective.
- Application Operations Layer: Facilitating Kubernetes to consumers of the platform is a key functionality. VMware created Tanzu Mission Control for application operations teams to remain in control over Kubernetes clusters in the private, hybrid and public cloud. Next to that Tanzu Observability provides operational insight on an application, Kubernetes and infrastructure level. Providing visibility to Kubernetes operators and developers.
- The acquisition of companies like Carbon Black, Lastline and Octarine represents the evolution of VMware’s intrinsic security strategy. Pivot to the strategy is leveraging the clients’ infrastructure and control points in new ways across any app, any cloud, and any device, combined with threat intelligence.
The ultimate goal of VMware’s Kubernetes strategy is to productize and industrialize Kubernetes so that is easy to consume, deploy and manage, by both developers and infrastructure operators, with or without extensive Kubernetes experience.
How to take advantage of what Kubernetes has to offer without dealing with Kubernetes
While the benefits of using Kubernetes to scale the deployment and management of applications are undeniable, it adds an additional layer of complexity to the development phase. Many companies take a decision to use Kubernetes in production and therefore they need to use it in development too. So the question is how to take advantage of the resilience and flexibility that Kubernetes has to offer, while introducing minimum overhead for the developers, who are not expert in Kubernetes?
With VMware Tanzu developers can focus on their code and let Tanzu Application Service do the rest. It is a portfolio of products and services to enable enterprises to build, run and manage modern apps on any cloud.
The portfolio simplifies multi-cloud operations, while freeing developers to move faster with easy access to the right resources. VMware Tanzu enables development and operations’ teams to work together in new ways that deliver transformative business results.
Key benefits include:
- Ship great software faster—Increase velocity with a modern software supply chain of frameworks, services and validated open source tech.
- Simplify multi-cloud operations— Get your infrastructure ready to run modern apps, and centrally manage your clouds, clusters and apps.
- Transform Dev and Ops together— Unite application developers and operations teams around the shared goal of fast release cycles
Read more about how VMware Tanzu can help you modernize your applications and infrastructure here.
VMware Bulgaria is hiring Kubernetes developers
We are hiring Kubernetes developers to support various teams contributing to Kubernetes related products.
