Is Kubernetes a little too terrifying? Platform9 has a safe space for you

Those daunted by the complexity of using Kubernetes to manage containerized applications can now outsource the work to Platform9.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company, known for its OpenStack-as-a-service offering, has launched Managed Kubernetes, an infrastructure-agnostic alternative to the Kubernetes service Google offers through its Cloud Platform.

"Managed Kubernetes is like Google Container Engine except it works on any infrastructure," said Sirish Raghuram, CEO of Platform9, in a phone interview with The Register.

Raghuram said enterprises are struggling to manage virtualized workloads and the shift toward containerized applications complicates matters further.

Kubernetes has become a popular way to orchestrate containers, Raghuram said, but it means operational complexity.

"That is the problem that Managed Kubernetes solves," he said.

Raghuram had only nice things to say about Google Container Engine, calling it "the best implementation out there" and noting that he thinks of Google as a partner rather than a competitor. He sees Platform9's Managed Kubernetes service as an option for organizations that want to use either on-premises infrastructure or other infrastructure providers.

Google, which developed Kubernetes and released it as an open-source project, coincidentally has only nice things to say about Platform9's Managed Kubernetes. David Aronchick, Kubernetes product manager at Google, in a statement called it "a positive addition to the ecosystem in helping make Kubernetes run anywhere."

And Kuldeep Chowhan, cloud architect at Expedia, a Managed Kubernetes customer, offered a similarly rosy endorsement. We'll spare you the details.

Amid the blinding glare of everyone smiling at one another, one might miss a potentially more interesting offering from Platform9. Fission, also newly released and not to be confused with Rogue Amoeba's identically named audio editor, is an open-source serverless extension to Kubernetes.

Though it's still being developed, Fission aspires to be an alternative to AWS Lambda, a service that allows applications and even discrete functions to run without provisioning or managing servers. This is referred to as serverless computing, which isn't entirely accurate – there are still servers somewhere, but someone else is tending to them.

"Just bring your code, just bring your REST functions, and the system will do the rest," said Raghuram. "When running this in the public cloud, this can be a lot more cost efficient than running this on actual machines." ®