Mirantis Partners With Google To Bring Kubernetes To OpenStack

Mirantis, a major player in the OpenStack ecosystem, today announced that it has partnered with Google to bring support for Kubernetes, Google’s open-source project for managing containerized applications, to the OpenStack project. This new project uses OpenStack’s Murano application catalog to make it easier to deploy and configure these new Kubernetes-based clusters and their respective Docker containers.

From Murano, OpenStack admins can now deploy Kubernetes with just a few clicks. As Mirantis notes, this new feature will allow developers who work with OpenStack to move their workloads between OpenStack and other cloud computing services — including Google’s Cloud Platform. This, as Google notes, also gives its customers more options for taking a hybrid approach (on-premise/public cloud) to their applications.

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On OpenStack, Murano — together with OpenStack’s Heat orchestration service — will automatically provision all of the resources necessary for the Kubernetes clusters (and then lets you scale your cluster up or down as necessary). Because of this, the cluster is then also integrated nicely with OpenStack’s built-in firewall, load balancing and monitoring tools.

Today’s announcement shows how quickly Google’s Kubernetes project is getting widespread acceptance in the industry. At the same time, it’s also a good example of how quickly the OpenStack ecosystem is growing — and of how its open-source model allows the project to adapt to the changing needs of developers.

“One reason OpenStack has rapidly become the standard for enterprise clouds is that it’s open and pluggable by design. So, when new technologies like Docker and Kubernetes emerge you see integration happen quickly,” OpenStack COO Mark Collier told me in an email earlier this week. “This integration delivers the benefits of Google’s proven container scaling engine with the compute, storage and networking orchestration in OpenStack that companies like Walmart have relied on for huge events like Cyber Monday.”