VMware adopts open source strategy to bring containers closer to enterprises
VMware has announced the open source availability of its vSphere Integrated Containers. This lets enterprises quickly leverage containers for their production operations. The company has also developed two new capabilities for its container solution to provide a Docker compatible interface to various IT teams.
Originally unveiled in August 2015, VMware’s vSphere Integrated Containers is a one-stop solution for enterprises that are looking for a container infrastructure integrated with Docker, Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry. But it was not a fully-customised option in the initial stages. Thus, the open source plan has now been sketched out as follows.
Instead of just giving old wine in a new bottle, VMware is offering the open source community a whole new solution. It has Admiral and Harbor as the new capabilities. While Admiral enables acceleration of application delivery, Harbor brings a container registry along with Docker support.
The new tools help enterprises move their containerised applications into production, irrespective of their on-premise or public cloud environments.
“Relying on our enterprise know-how, we are delivering VMware vSphere Integrated Containers to dramatically simplify the delivery of containers and application services into production in virtual environments, whether on-premise or in the public cloud. Application development teams can benefit from the flexibility, portability and speed of containers while IT benefits from the security,
visibility and management capabilities of VMware vSphere,” said Ray O’Farrell, executive vice president and chief technology officer, VMware, in a statement.
Admiral provides enterprises a built-in container management portal right through vSphere Integrated Containers. When joined together with VMware vRealize Automation and vSphere Integrated Containers, the software project delivers Containers-as-a-Service (CaaS) to application development teams. Developers can use the combination to model different containerised applications.
Harbor, on the other hand, empowers VMware to offer various enterprise features such as user management and access control, policy-based image replication, audit and log support and a RESTful API for integration. All this comes through a Docker distribution, which is powering the open source software at the backend.
Developers and entrepreneurs who want to test the new features through VMware vSphere Integrated Containers can register for its beta programme. A GitHub repository is also available to provide the code of Admiral and Harbor projects.