Microsoft, Docker, Red Hat and IBM Join Google's Kubernetes Project

A few weeks ago, I covered the news that Google has released Kubernetes under an open-source license, which is essentially a version of Borg, which harnesses computing power from data centers into a powerful virtual machine. It can make a difference for many cloud computing deployments, and optimizes usage of container technology. You can find the source code for Kubernetes on GitHub.

Now, news has arrived that some vey big contributors to the Kubernetes project, including IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat, Docker, CoreOS, Mesosphere, and SaltStack are working in tandem on open source tools and container technologies that can run on multiple computers and networks.

VentureBeat notes that Microsoft's interest in the colloboration could have to do with getting Azure clouds to work nicely with Linux and container technology:

"The new backing of Kubernetes could also be a turn away from more segmented and often proprietary hypervisor technology that sits on top of server operating systems and creates many virtual slices for running applications within each physical server. As developers and companies begin to try it, companies that sell hypervisor software, including VMware, could start to wonder how they should participate in the containerization movement."

"Microsoft makes a hypervisor, Hyper-V. But the tech giant’s participation in the Kubernetes project is 'working to ensure that Kubernetes works great in Linux environments in Azure VMs,' according to a statement Google issued today."

IBM and other companies have shown a lot of interest in integrating technology with Docker, and Docker could play a central role in the Kubernetes project. As a Google blog post explains things:

"Kubernetes is an open source manager for Docker containers, based on Google’s years of experience using containers at Internet scale...Our shared goal is to allow a broad range of developers to take advantage of container technologies. Kubernetes was built from the ground up as a lean, extensible and portable framework for managing Docker workloads. It lets customers manage their applications the way that Google manages hyper-scale applications like Search and Gmail."

"Containers offer tremendous advantages for developers. Predictable deployments and simple scalability are possible because Docker packages all of a workload’s dependencies with the application. This allows for ultimate portability; you can avoid vendor lock-in and run containers in the cloud of your choice. It is just as important that the management framework has the same properties of portability and scalability, and that is what the community will bring to Kubernetes."

Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President of the Cloud and Enterprise group at Microsoft stated: “Microsoft will help contribute code to Kubernetes to enable customers to easily manage containers that can run anywhere. This will make it easier to build multi-cloud solutions including targeting Microsoft Azure.”

Kubernetes has some mighty collaborators, and this project will be worth watching.